Supporting health through design: challenges and opportunities.

This special issue of the American Journal of Health Promotion on ‘‘Health Promoting Community Design’’ highlights the most recent research into how the built environment affects health. This emerging research provides another chapter in the rich history of public health and its quest to overcome obstacles to health through shaping the environment in which people live. The role of public health in community design has traditionally been to improve sanitation and personal hygiene. Now attention is shifting to how design affects other important elements of health, especially physical activity. The 13 articles in this special issue provide a fundamental overview of the relationship between community design and health and what needs to be done to promote physical activity and improve health through affecting social circumstances and environmental conditions.