Transportation + Health

Links between transportation + health

Transportation provides access to goods and services that support healthful living, offers opportunities for individual mobility and for better quality of life, and plays an important role in economic development.
Transportation systems affect a range of factors related to health, including air quality, the opportunity to exercise or walk to work or school safely, and access to healthy foods, employment, and education.
Transportation also contributes to traffic injuries, air pollution and climate change, as well as diseases resulting from physical inactivity and noise. However, these risks can be reduced by healthy transportation policies and development patterns that promote walking, biking and other forms of active transportation.
Because transportation systems and policies can facilitate or discourage healthy behaviors, public health and transportation officials are giving greater consideration to the impacts of transportation on health.

Transportation's Role in Reducing U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions

Transportation is a significant contributor to national greenhouse gas emissions, and can be part of the Nation’s solution to the climate change challenge.

Planners and Public Health Professionals Need to Partner...Again (NCMJ vol. 73, no. 4)
The planning profession traces its origins to the efforts of 19th century reformers to improve public health by addressing problems resulting from urbanization. So it is fitting that in the 21st century, planners are once again working with public health professionals to make communities healthier, this time by addressing problems caused by suburbanization. Read more >

Health in All Policies
Health in All Policies (HiAP) is a collaborative approach that integrates and articulates health considerations into policy-making across sectors, at all levels, to improve the health of all communities and people. Learn more >

Planning + Community Health Initiatives