Urban built environments in Chinese cities have increasingly been shown to not only influence human health outcomes but also promote sustainable urban development pathways. These health and sustainability advantages have had significant implications for cardiovascular disease (CVD) prevention and management. CVD represents a growing public health challenge in China’s rapidly urbanizing contexts. However, people living in poorly designed built environments receive less attention and tend to experience disproportionate cardiovascular health risks due to limited access to health-promoting environmental features. Therefore, this systematic review emphasizes the role of urban built environments in shaping cardiovascular health outcomes. Previous studies have highlighted the importance of spatial indicators, such as the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), green space ratio, walkability, and public open space, in influencing cardiovascular health. Using various common cardiovascular diseases and their risk factors as outcome measures, this review conducted a comprehensive literature search across CNKI, Web of Science, Scopus, and PubMed. The search aimed to identify studies examining the associations between urban built environments and cardiovascular health outcomes, in order to synthesize and present the research progress in this field. Through this review, we find that physical activity serves as the key mediating mechanism linking built environment characteristics to cardiovascular outcomes. Based on this finding, this review argues that urban built environment design and sustainable urbanism should prioritize cardiovascular health considerations in the planning process, as this health-oriented approach has the greatest potential for advancing public health resources and moving cities closer to being truly sustainable and health-promoting environments.

Residential crowding is a widespread housing-health challenge, but floor-area and occupancy measures offer limited guidance for architectural assessment. This systematic review examined associations between residential crowding and mental-health and psychosocial outcomes, relevant environmental-psychological mechanisms, and design-oriented spatial indicators. Following PRISMA 2020, we searched four databases from inception through 3 April 2026. Seventy-six empirical studies were included; 48 formed a structured evidence matrix, and studies reporting adjusted estimates in explicit spatial units underwent additional extraction. Methodological quality was appraised using a ROBINS-E-style framework. Heterogeneity in exposure definitions, outcomes, effect metrics, and study designs precluded meta-analysis. The narrative synthesis therefore emphasized adjusted estimates, temporality, confounder control, and risk of bias rather than unweighted study counts. Greater livable area was associated with lower depression risk, higher persons-per-room ratios with greater child behavioural difficulties, and bedroom-loss-driven crowding with increased depressive symptoms. These estimates did not support a universal threshold. Privacy loss and reduced perceived control recurred most broadly. Sleep disturbance, family strain, weakened social support, and impaired sense of home were salient in particular populations and settings. The resulting Crowding-Sensitive Residential Performance Assessment integrates spatial load, regulatory capacity, and occupancy context.

Urban emergency medical services (EMSs) depend on time-critical accessibility, spatial demand distribution, and resilient transport networks. This study examines how built-environment characteristics shape spatiotemporal population intensity (as a proxy for latent EMS demand) within Shenzhen’s 10 min ambulance-accessible Emergency Medical Circle (EMC), using high-resolution Baidu Huiyan mobile-device data. Human activity intensity was quantified in 200 × 200 m grids and modeled against 20 built-environment indicators using a Gradient Boosting Decision Tree (LightGBM), with SHAP employed for interpretable attribution. By analyzing the distribution density and variance of SHAP dependence patterns, pronounced diurnal shifts in dominant drivers were identified. Medical facility density anchors nocturnal demand, road network permeability dominates pre-dawn mobility, land-use entropy and functional diversity peak during the midday period, while transit hubs and mixed-use amenities consolidate evening activity. The results further reveal critical non-linear thresholds—such as medical facility density (~1.5–2.5 km⁻²) and building density (~45,000–60,000 m² km⁻²)—beyond which marginal contributions diminish or become negative, indicating that proximity alone does not guarantee effective emergency coverage. These findings provide quantitative, time-sensitive guidance for EMC planning, highlighting the need for balanced facility dispersion, network prioritization, and demand-aware spatial design. By integrating high-resolution population dynamics with visually interpretable machine learning, this study advances a human-centered and operationally grounded framework for resilient emergency medical systems.