ABSTRACT
Health is more than the absence of illness and disease, but also an ideal that is associated with the cult of a physical fit and attractive body. This ideal incorporates a different set of values to those used in public health policies that proposed health as a human right. A key issue is how built environment professionals position themselves critically in the context of increasing health and socio-economic inequalities in cities. Many researchers in epidemiology, medicine, physiology, psychology, health geography, housing studies, and urban sociology, use simple linear models and statistical correlations that are meant to improve our understanding of the quantifiable relations between what authors interpret as causal factors. A holistic, systemic framework is a basic tenet shared by human ecology and ecological public health. This type of framework should be applied in interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research.
