Examining Healthy Community Design Characteristics and Its Influence on Physical Health

Current obesity rate trends associated with the community layout constitutes research towards understanding the interaction between the two in order to improve the publics physical health. Successes in healthy community planning studies for the public can be harnessed and implemented within the microcosm of military bases to yield similar results. Four factors were recognized through a literature review that showed positive influence on physical health. The four healthy planning strategies formed the necessary background to analyze the HBI survey. A priori data from Air Force Civil Engineer Center was examined for reliability, validity, and consistency. The results uncovered the fact that the exploratory nature of the Healthy Base Initiative survey was too wide-ranged leading to inconclusive effects. The development of a novel survey addresses the issues of the original survey by narrowing down applicable healthy planning factors to the four strategies highlighted from the literature review. The novel survey examines existing base infrastructure and physical health questionnaire to determine the relationship between physical health and environment. Altogether, the significance of this research presents four concise healthy planning strategies as well as a recommendation for a way forward on understanding how to improve base occupants physical health through healthy community planning.