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There is growing evidence showing that place impacts people's health on multiple scales. From obesity and chronic disease to depression, social isolation, and increased exposure to environmental toxins and pollutants, the world faces very different health challenges today than it has in the past, and many of these challenges are directly related to how our public spaces are designed and operated.

The Creating Health Collaborative is a group of innovators working individually to understand and create health 'beyond the lens of health care'. The Collaborative is run by a nine-person Executive that believes our struggle to meet the growing demand for care is underpinned by an inability to see health as more than just 'the absence of disease'.

This toolkit can help planners, public health professionals, and the general public include health in the community planning process. Developed in partnership between the American Planning Association's Planning and Community Health Research Center and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Healthy Community Design Initiative, the toolkit is composed of four elements that work together to achieve this goal:

Fiscal policy can be a matter of life and death David Stuckler and Sanjay Basu "Then the president of Iceland took a radical step: asking the people what they wanted to do. In March 2010, 93% of the Icelandic people voted against financing a bailout for foreign savers of Icesave Bank through draconian budget cuts. Instead, Iceland stabilized healthcare spending. Thanks to this boost to the nation's universal healthcare system, no one lost access to healthcare even as the cost of imported medicines rose as an effect of the devaluation of the Icelandic Krona. There was no significant rise in suicides or depression. Nor were there any significant infectious disease outbreaks. Indeed, last year GDP growth was 2.7%, and unemployment rates have fallen below 5%. Having seen the results, the IMF turned tail, praising Iceland's successful approach."

The Underworlds project is the first of its kind, and a proof of concept that cities can make use of their waste water system to do near real-time urban epidemiology and understand human health and behavior with a fine spatio-temporal resolution. Probably the most obvious first application of smart sewage technology is infectious disease surveillance, and the prediction of outbreaks.

HealthBegins took root in Dr. Manchanda's early work as a doctor in Los Angeles safety-net clinics, where he saw the need to support and strengthen the work of frontline clinicians and community partners who wanted to treat disease and the conditions that made people sick in the first place. That's how HealthBegins was born: as a professional home for Upstreamists. 

This is our topic for today: the way things move and spread, somewhat chaotically, across a network. Some examples to whet the appetite: Infectious diseases jumping from host to host within a population Memes spreading across a follower graph on social media A wildfire breaking out across a landscape Ideas and practices diffusing through a culture Neutrons cascading through a hunk of enriched uranium

"The GBD study offers a powerful resource to understand the changing health challenges facing people across the world in the 21st century. Led by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), the GBD study is the most comprehensive worldwide observational epidemiological study to date. By tracking progress within and between countries GBD provides an important tool to inform clinicians, researchers, and policy makers, promote accountability, and improve lives worldwide. "

WHO is the directing and coordinating authority for health within the United Nations system. It is responsible for providing leadership on global health matters, shaping the health research agenda, setting norms and standards, articulating evidence-based policy options, providing technical support to countries and monitoring and assessing health trends.

The PLACE Program fosters policy change that supports healthy, safe, and active environments for all Los Angeles County residents. We recognize that the design and structure of our cities, communities, neighborhoods, work sites, schools, and streets can impact how much physical activity we get, what we eat, the safety of our streets, and the quality of the air we breathe. How we choose to design or improve various aspects of our environment plays an important role in preventing injury and many chronic conditions - such as obesity, heart disease, diabetes and asthma - whose risk factors include physical inactivity, poor nutrition and exposure to air pollution. As more Angelinos face the threat and reality of developing these chronic conditions, the PLACE Program supports the development of healthier communities by fostering policy change that improves the places where people live, work and play.

The Philips Center for Health and Well-being is a knowledge-sharing forum that provides a focal point to raise the level of discussion on what matters most to citizens and communities. The Center will bring together experts for dialogue and debate aimed at overcoming barriers and identifying possible solutions for meaningful change that can improve people's overall health and well-being.

The closing keynote at the Economist Conferences Event, "Creating tomorrow's liveable cities", presented byProfessor Jan Gehl, founding partner of Gehl Architects,Copenhagen. This video provides a good deal of information on the benefits bicycling and walking have on a livable community when integrated into the community landscape.

Together, We Inspire" - WORLD HEALTH INNOVATION SUMMIT   We want the best health care system in the world, we want the most efficient and effective system so everyone benefits.   How do we achieve this?   By working together, collaborating and sharing knowledge like never before to improve healthcare for all.   The World Health Organisation 1946 defines health as a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity'.   The WHO determinants of health are: - the social and economic environment - the physical environment, and - the persons individuals characteristics and behaviours  

The Santa Fe Institute is a nonprofit, independent research center that leads global research in complexity science. SFI scientists seek the shared patterns and regularities across physical, biological, social, and technological systems that give rise to complexity-in any system in which its collective, system-wide behaviors cannot be understood merely by studying its parts or individuals in isolation. Insights from complexity science are increasingly useful in understanding questions far beyond the boundaries of traditional academic disciplines-urban sustainability, disease networks, and financial risk, to name a few.