Unit 4 Written Assignment

UoPeople

HS 2711-01 - Community and Public Health 1

(Name withheld for peer review)

Instructor: Hubert Amu

7-Dec-22
Intro

Social and built environments can both improve or lessen the public health based on the quality

of the area (Koohsari et al., 2021). When looking at social environment you would consider the

different resources that a person has through their social connections (Koohsari et al., 2021).

Looking at built environments you look at the man-made buildings and structures that you live,

work and use for recreation (Koohsari et al., 2021). In this paper I will be looking into how both

of these affect my current community.

Using the assigned readings, describe your neighborhood and community.

My current neighborhood is quite odd as it is a mix of good and bad conditions. I live in a fairly

new condo in Bangkok, Thailand the condo itself is quite modern with many amities that

promote healthy living such as a gym, pool, and outdoor walking track with a small garden. All

of these are great but then when it comes to water, I cannot drink tap water and the water has so

much stuff in it, as it comes out a rust color sometimes, that I don’t even feel comfortable

brushing my teeth with it or letting my cat drink from it.

The roadways in my area are very narrow and have been the cause of a few accidents on both

motorcycles and cars. I can understand in the older parts of town but the area I live in was only

developed in the last 10 years when bigger cars were clearly already made so it does not make

sense to keep building these very tight roads that barely fit 2 cars passing eachother.

The one thing I do like is that I have plenty of access to quality hospitals in my area as there are

2 hospitals within a 1 km drive form the condo that I live in, one of which is a very nice private

hospital that offers any type of treatment that I could see needing.
Describe linkages between the social environment and the built environment (e.g. having

sidewalks or parks in a neighborhood.) 

I think that the nice parks were built in my neighborhood due to the pushes from the upper class

to have nicer amenities. So due to their social status they were able to push the local government

and builders to start building nicer things.

How does your environment align with concepts of social capital? 

Social connections in Thailand are everything I have found out. Who you know can be the

difference to what you will have access to. I am fortunate to have a decent number of

connections in the medical field so when I needed a surgery, I had access to the best doctor for

the job. It will also affect effect what schools you will be able to get your children into and the

quality of education that they receive.

What role does the 'built environment' play a role in health and health outcomes in your

community? 

Built environment plays a large roll in Bangkok. You can see a 5-star building with all the

amenities one could ever need to live a healthy and happy life, then walk 2 min down the road

and see slums where people have no access to clean water, sanitary conditions, or a proper

medical facility (Story & Glanville, 2017).

Conclusion

When looking at the impact of social and built environments you realize how much it can impact

your quality of life, which in turn affects your health. It needs to start at the top, to build a good

infrastructure to give the entire population access to chance at having a healthy life. Good living

conditions and access to something as simple as water should not be a luxury but rather a

common thing for everyone.

References:

 Koohsari, M., Nakaya, T., McCormack, G., Shibata, A., Ishii, K., Yasunaga, A.,

Hanibuch, T., & Koichiro, O. (2021). Traditional and novel walkable built environment

metrics and social capital. Landscape and Urban Planning,

214. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landurbplan.2021.104184.

 Mouratidis, K. (2021). Urban planning and quality of life: A review of pathways linking

the built environment to subjective well-being. Cities, 115, 103229.

https://reader.elsevier.com/reader/sd/pii/S0264275121001293?token=4BB804FD862EE9

68549FC30544FBDA63B0E2040DD1818A60C82DF8CD0B6646C78DB3AE389A37D

B2926EC8879F9883789&originRegion=us-east-1&originCreation=20211001182539

 Northridge, M. E., & Sclar, E. (2003). A joint urban planning and public health

framework: Contributions to health impact assessment. American Journal of Public

Health, 93(1), 118-21.  https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1447705/

 Story, W. T., & Glanville, J. L. (2019). Comparing the association between social capital

and self-rated health in poor and affluent nations. SSM-population health, 9,

100508. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssmph.2019.100508