Healthy Society

'Healthy societies' rely on policies, standards, and interventions to enable people to move more and be physically active. This requires organizations and levels of government to work together to ensure that environments are accessible and supportive to movement patterns and that, for example, a health lens is used when infrastructure planning.

Active Transportation

Active transportation (AT) is an example of how policies can shape our environments to be more supportive of increased movement patterns. AT describes all human-powered forms of travels, with the most popular being walking and cycling. These can also be combined with other modes of transportation, such as public transit. Some examples include walking to the store or to school, or cycling to a local recreation centre.

AT is a way for individuals to replace sedentary behaviour (i.e., sitting in a car) with patterns of movement. Evidence shows that residents choose active transportation when there is safe and accessible infrastructure for AT (e.g., sidewalks, bike lanes) and where destinations are close together.

PEI's Active Transportation Network Plan can be found, here.

Healthy Built Environments

It is well known that our surrounding environments play a large role on our health outcomes. This is also true for our activity levels!

People are more likely to be active if they live near parks and playgrounds, in neighbourhoods that have sidewalks and bike paths, or close enough to work, school, or shopping that they can travel by bike or on foot. People are less likely to be active if they live in neighbourhoods without recreation facilities or in sprawling suburbs designed for driving.

The concept of a “healthy built environment” is considered through a holistic perspective including five core features:

• Neighbourhood Design - Transportation Networks

The BC Centre for Disease Control’s Population & Public Health Team has created a toolkit to support the inclusion of health considerations with community planning and design. 

• Natural Environments
• Food Systems
• Housing