Green Health Urban Planning and the Development of Healthy and Sustainable Neighborhoods and Schools

A growing body of evidence demonstrates that alterations in individual behaviors alone are not sufficient to change the course of the enduring public health epidemics such as childhood obesity. Instead, environmental factors that influence what, when, where, and how much people eat and drink and how physically active they are must be addressed at a population scale to promote healthy behaviors. Urban planners have a direct role to play in this work. This focus issue centers on a vision for the role urban planning can play to advance green health by paying careful attention to schools as a critical community resource, meeting place, and organizational feature.