2023 Vol.3

Social Aspects of Healthy City

The Influence of Community Built Environment on Social Health: Review and Enlightenment

Abstract: In the context of rapid urbanization and stock regeneration in China, demographic and environmental changes have brought about a reconfiguration of the social space of communities, alienation of neighbourhoods and an increasing focus on the social health of residents. A wealth of research findings have demonstrated the value of active interventions in built environments on residents' physical and psychological health, while the relationship between the built environment and social health is still unclear. This study introduces the connotation and characteristics of social health, identifies the different dimensions of social health influencing factors and elements of the built environment, clarifies the three "environment-social health" influencing pathways based on residents' objective behaviours, subjective perceptions and spatial justice and social norms, classifies and distills research findings, and analyses the development. The study also proposes the contents and methods that should be focused on in this research area in China in the future, and provides a theoretical basis for the construction of proactive health interventions in human settlements.

Research on Community Health and Its Influence Mechanism: A Case Study of Communities in Guangzhou

Abstract: Taking Healthy China as the strategic guidance, the community as the basic unit of human health has been concerned. Correlative studies mainly discuss the impact of material and social factors on residents' physical and mental health, but the influence factors are still considered incompletely and the analysis framework needs to be more systematic. This paper focuses on the "individual" and "community" levels, and uses the multi-layer linear model to analyze and explore the influence mechanism of community health, which is based on the "humanity" and "structure" perspectives, and the survey data of 3 302 questionnaires from 15 communities in Guangzhou. The results indicate that there are significant differences between the two levels in the influence mechanism of community health, as well as diversified action paths. On the whole, "individuation" has a more significant effect path, which confirms the significance of human subjective initiative in the community system. The material space attributes and governance attributes mainly reflect the significant positive influence on community health at the "individual" level, while the social attributes and economic attributes reflect more on the "structured" path at the "community" level.

Urban Environmental Exposure and Migrants' Health in the Era of Mobility: From the Perspective of Social-spatial Effects

Abstract: This article reviews the literature and examines the progress, content, and framework of research on environmental exposure and migrants' health issues. The study identifies three critical theories currently being explored: social acculturation & health evolution, social capital & migrants' health, and environmental health disparities theory. Research in this area has expanded beyond natural environments to multiple dimensions, such as built- and socio-environments. Due to social and economic inequality, limited housing opportunities, and uneven geographic distribution, along with the impacts of social-spatial effects, significant differences in environmental exposure exist between migrants and local residents, resulting in injustice in built environments and social capital, and increased vulnerability of migrants' health. However, existing theories and empirical evidence primarily rely on the experiences of Western countries. They overlooked the impacts of migrants' experiences and dynamic social-spatial effects caused by residential mobility. This article proposes a new research paradigm of "environmental exposure-social-spatial effects-migrants' health", emphasizing the crucial role of social-spatial effects, which can provide valuable insights for the construction of healthy cities in China and other countries.

A Review of Rural Place Attachment upon the Perspective of Social Health

Abstract: In the context of population mobility, the problems of rural-human-land conflict and social integration caused by the continuous rural outflow have a significant impact on social health. A high level of place attachment is an effective way to promote the healthy development of society. This research compares and analyzes the international literature on rural place attachment from a social health perspective with the help of bibliometric methods, constructing a framework of the influence mechanisms between rural place attachment and social health. It is found that the field has gone through three stages of "recognize-explore-deepen". The research is represented by developed countries in Europe and the United States and China, and the main research fields are population migration, perception and behavior, and rural tourism, mostly cross-sectional studies. The research groups are mainly focused on youth and migrant populations in disaster areas, residents of tourist villages and tourists. Moreover, there are differences in the main research contents of different countries. In future research, attention to different rural types and social groups can be strengthened, exploring China's localized theoretical framework and promoting the deepening of theoretical research and innovation in practical application, in order to improve the human-land conflicts, promote social integration, and achieve healthy social development.

Building a Community Garden Network under the Guidance of Healthy City: The Practice in Qinghe Subdistrict, Beijing

Abstract: In recent years, under the guidance of ecological civilization, a large number of practices related to the ecological city and the healthy city have been carried out throughout China. The building of community gardens, which integrates the concepts of green ecology and co-governance and aims to promote the green regeneration of community micro space and the innovation of grassroots social governance, has become an important part. As urban regeneration in Beijing enters the new stage, more and more community micro space regeneration activities have been comprehensively promoted in combination with the implementation of the principal planner system. Relying on the green ecological demonstration area project, many micro green space regeneration practices have been carried out in Qinghe Subdistrict, Haidian District, centering around the theme of creating the community garden network. Based on a systematic review of the main concept, characteristics, paths and values of community gardens at home and abroad, and taking the practice of community garden building in Qinghe Subdistrict as an example, the thesis elaborates on the overall idea of community garden network building with the support of "principal planners - community planners" system and the guidance of healthy city, as well as the implementation strategies from the three aspects including spatial support networking, community support networking, and value dissemination networking. With the analysis of four representative building cases in different levels and forms, it summarizes the significance of community garden network building for strengthening ecosystem service functions and health benefits, and promoting the realization of a healthy city from four aspects, including improving the ecological space system of blocks, promoting the grassroots social governance, facilitating the institutional innovation in co-building, and disseminating the concept of green regeneration. Finally, the potential issues and development prospects are proposed.

Correlation Study on Dog Breeding Group Behavior and Public Space of High-rise Residential Areas in Mountainous Cities under the Concept of "One Health"

Abstract: The number of pet dogs in urban high-rise residential areas is increasing, and the high-frequency conflict between the behavior of dog breeding groups and public space in residential areas has become a social problem that cannot be ignored in the current living environment. In order to build a high-quality human settlement environment, the issue of the correlation between dog breeding group behavior and residential space has been included in the research vision of urban community renewal. This paper applies the concept of "One Health" from the macro scale to the micro scale of daily living environment. Taking the high-rise residential area of Jinsha District, Shapingba, Chongqing as the research object, this paper uses the space-time behavior analysis method to focus on the correlation between the dog breeding group behavior and the public space of residential areas. It includes the space-time behavior characteristics, different needs of people, spatial conflicts and adaptation, and then puts forward the healthy and friendly optimization strategy of "human-dog-space" public space in residential areas. The research can further enrich and improve the cognition and updating ideas of high-density residential areas in mountain cities.

Analysis of the Characteristics and Mechanisms of Obesogenic Environment in Community: Cases Study of 11 Prefecture-level Cities in Hebei Province

Abstract: With the accelerated urbanization process in China, the built environment and residents' lifestyles have undergone great changes, resulting in the high prevalence of overweight and obesity, which seriously threatens people's health. In recent years, Western academia has shifted its attention to the triggers of overweight and obesity from individual factors to environmental risk factors, believing that the "obesogenization" of urban environment is the fundamental cause of the epidemic of overweight and obesity. However, domestic research is still in its initial stage. Accordingly, based on a systematic literature review, this paper investigates the effects of built and social environmental factors on overweight and obesity, both at the 10-minute living circle level and the residential neighborhood level. This paper employs a multilevel linear model, using data from the 2017-2018 Hebei Population and Family Health Survey. The results show that after controlling for individual factors, mixed entropy of land use, density of unhealthy food vending outlets, green space and open space area within the 10-minute living circle, and housing price level at the residential neighborhood level are significantly associated with overweight and obesity. This paper reveals the basic characteristics and mechanisms of the obesogenic environment at the community level in urban China, and provides some insights for controlling the overweight and obesity epidemic from the urban planning perspective.