Event Details — Distinguished Speaker Series: Dr. Richard Jackson will talk about health and urban form

“The modern America of obesity, inactivity, depression, and loss of community has not ‘happened’ to us. We legislated, subsidized, and planned it this way.”
- Richard Jackson. MD, MPH

Chair and Professor of Environmental Health Sciences at UCLA's School of Public Health and former Director of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention National Center for Environmental Health Richard Jackson, MD, MPH, will speak in Houston about health and urban design.

Dr. Jackson says that the best defense against the chronic major diseases of the 21st century - obesity, depression, and osteoporosis - is physical activity. And walking, he says, is still the healthiest, safest exercise.

Yet many of our neighborhoods are built around the automobile, created by sprawl-inducing planning and development practices that have forfeited the safety and needs of pedestrians, children, bicycles, the elderly, and people with disabilities while encouraging more driving and fossil fuel consumption.

It's time to rethink our use of energy, Dr. Jackson says, to increase our human energy-burn and decrease fossil fuel consumption. He would have us start with the ill-effects of sprawl and he's not alone. Developers are finding that growing numbers of people are demanding neighborhoods that are friendly to pedestrians, kids, bikes, neighbors, the elderly, and people with disabilities.

"Poor urban planning can create the conditions that cause asthma, cancer and depression," he says. "Simple measures like increasing the walkability of an area or introducing pedestrian zones and bike lanes reduce obesity and blood pressure. We know that the more green and social spaces there are, the happier people will be."

It is possible, Dr. Jackson believes, to create communities around people, not vehicles. Start with public services that are best for the community instead of today's scramble to retrofit infrastructure to accommodate individual developments. Design and build homes and businesses (where we spend 95% of our time) to conserve fossil fuel. Require safe and attractive high-quality schools in urban environments. And maximize both our connections to each other and to nature.

Much of Dr. Jackson's past decade of work has been devoted to studying how the 'built environment,' including architecture and urban planning, affects health. Currently, he is analyzing the human health implications of existing public policy on farming, education, housing, and transportation.

Read a short interview with Richard Jackson on the website Building Design.

Listen to an excerpt from an interview with Richard Jackson on The Paula Gordon Show website.

Read an article co-written by Richard Jackson for Sprawl Watch Clearinghouse about the urban environment's impact on public health, found on the National Center for Healthy Housing website.

Read Richard Jackson's Testimony to the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee on the link between public health and environment.

Read a short interview with Richard Jackson from the website of The Collaborative on Health and the Environment.

This event is part of Houston Tomorrow's Distinguished Speaker series, funded by The Anchorage Foundation of Texas.

Free and open to the public. Parking at the United Way Center is also free. RSVP to .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) or call 713.523.5757.

Thurs, June 18, 2009
7:00 - 8:30 pm lecture
6:30 pm reception

United Way Center
50 Waugh Drive
Houston, TX