Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

Neighbourhood built environment and cardiovascular disease: knowledge and future directions

Nature Reviews Cardiology volume 17, pages 261–263 (2020)Cite this article

Subjects

Awareness of the effect of the neighbourhood built environment on cardiovascular diseases is growing. In this Comment, we identify major conceptual, methodological and policy-relevant issues in research related to the built environment and describe potential future directions to improve the scientific rigour of research in this field.

Neighbourhoods — spatial units consisting of land uses and roads — include built environment attributes (such as building design, transport infrastructure, residential density, public open spaces, street connectivity and access to healthy food) that influence individuals’ health. Although modifying the neighbourhood built environment tends to be difficult in the short term, built environment strategies have long-term effects on behaviour and health1. Scientific and public interest in the role of the neighbourhood built environment in preventing cardiovascular disease (CVD) is growing2. In this Comment article, we aim to advance the research agenda by identifying major conceptual, methodological and policy-relevant issues related to research into the neighbourhood built environment and CVD. We also describe potential next steps and future directions to improve the scientific rigour of research on this topic.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Rent or buy this article

Prices vary by article type

from$1.95

to$39.95

Learn more

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Fig. 1: Simplified relationships between the neighbourhood built environment and CVD.

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Chokshi, D. A. & Farley, T. A. Changing behaviors to prevent noncommunicable diseases. Science 345, 1243–1244 (2014).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  2. Nieuwenhuijsen, M. J. Influence of urban and transport planning and the city environment on cardiovascular disease. Nat. Rev. Cardiol. 15, 432–438 (2018).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Chandrabose, M. et al. Built environment and cardio-metabolic health: systematic review and meta-analysis of longitudinal studies. Obes. Rev. 20, 41–54 (2019).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  4. Gascon, M. et al. Residential green spaces and mortality: a systematic review. Environ. Int. 86, 60–67 (2016).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Kärmeniemi, M. et al. The built environment as a determinant of physical activity: a systematic review of longitudinal studies and natural experiments. Ann. Behav. Med. 52, 239–251 (2018).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Rajagopalan, S., Al-Kindi, S. G. & Brook, R. D. Air pollution and cardiovascular disease: JACC state-of-the-art review. J. Am. Coll. Cardiol. 72, 2054–2070 (2018).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  7. Cohen, B. E., Edmondson, D. & Kronish, I. M. State of the art review: depression, stress, anxiety, and cardiovascular disease. Am. J. Hypertens. 28, 1295–1302 (2015).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  8. Kwan, M.-P. The neighborhood effect averaging problem (NEAP): an elusive confounder of the neighborhood effect. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 15, 1841 (2018).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Chaix, B. How daily environments and situations shape behaviors and health: momentary studies of mobile sensing and smartphone survey data. Health Place https://doi.org/10.1016/j.healthplace.2019.102241 (2019).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  10. Garg, P. K., Jorgensen, N., Moore, K., Soliman, E. Z. & Heckbert, S. R. Neighborhood environments and risk of incident atrial fibrillation: the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis. Eur. J. Prev. Cardiol. https://doi.org/10.1177/2047487319885196 (2019).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

G.R.M. is supported by a Canadian Institutes of Health Research Foundations Scheme Grant (FDN-154331). K.O. is supported by the MEXT-Supported Program for the Strategic Research Foundation at Private Universities, 2015–2019, from the Japan Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (S1511017).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Sport Sciences, Waseda University, Tokorozawa, Saitama, Japan

    Mohammad Javad Koohsari & Koichiro Oka

  2. Department of Community Health Sciences, Cumming School of Medicine, University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta, Canada

    Gavin R. McCormack

  3. Graduate School of Environmental Studies, Tohoku University, Sendai, Miyagi, Japan

    Tomoki Nakaya

Authors
  1. Mohammad Javad Koohsari
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Gavin R. McCormack
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Tomoki Nakaya
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Koichiro Oka
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Mohammad Javad Koohsari.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing interests. In particular, none of the authors has a financial interest in Walk Score.

Additional information

Related links

Walk Score: https://www.walkscore.com/

Rights and permissions

Reprints and Permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Koohsari, M.J., McCormack, G.R., Nakaya, T. et al. Neighbourhood built environment and cardiovascular disease: knowledge and future directions. Nat Rev Cardiol 17, 261–263 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41569-020-0343-6

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41569-020-0343-6

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing