The current review aimed to explore the association between urban greenspaces and health indicators. In particular, our aims were to analyze the association between publicly accessible urban greenspaces exposure and two selected health outcomes (objectively measured physical activity (PA) and mental health outcomes (MH)). Two electronic databases—PubMed/Medline and Excerpta Medica dataBASE (EMBASE)—were searched from 1 January 2000 to 30 September 2020. Only articles in English were considered. Out of 356 retrieved articles, a total of 34 papers were included in our review. Of those, 15 assessed the association between urban greenspace and PA and 19 dealt with MH. Almost all the included studies found a positive association between urban greenspace and both PA and MH, while a few demonstrated a non-effect or a negative effect on MH outcomes. However, only guaranteeing access is not enough. Indeed, important elements are maintenance, renovation, closeness to residential areas, planning of interactive activities, and perceived security aspects. Overall, despite some methodological limitations of the included studies, the results have shown almost univocally that urban greenspaces harbour potentially beneficial effects on physical and mental health and well-being.

The ongoing pandemic of COVID-19 is a strong reminder that the lockdown period has changed the way that people and communities live, work, and interact, and it's necessary to make resilient the built environment, both outdoor and mainly the indoor spaces: housing, workplaces, public buildings, and entertainment facilities. How can we re-design the concept of Well-being and Public Health in relation to the living places of the future? According to the previous statements and scenario, this paper aims to integrate the building hygiene and well-being, focusing the possible responses, both existing and for the new buildings, taking home a strong message from this "period" of physical distancing. The Well-being and Public Health recommendations for a healthy, safe, and sustainable housing are framed into the following key points: 1. Visible and accessible green elements and spaces; 2. Flexibility, adaptability, sharing, and crowding of living spaces, and compliant functions located into the buildings; 3. Re-appropriation of the basic principles and archetypes of sustainable architecture, thermal comfort and Indoor Air Quality (IAQ); 4. Water consumption and Wastewater Management; 5. Urban Solid Waste Management; 6. Housing automation and electromagnetic fields; 7. Indoor building and finishing materials. The Well-being and Public Health recommendations for a healthy, safe and sustainable housing may provide a useful basis for Designers, Policy Makers (fostering tax incentives for building renewal), Public Health experts and Local Health Agencies, in promoting actions and policies aimed to transform living places in healthier and Salutogenic spaces.

Starting from a previous experience carried out by the working group “Building and Environmental Hygiene” of the Italian Society of Hygiene and Preventive Medicine (SItI), the aim of the present work is to define new strategic goals for achieving a “Healthy and Salutogenic City”, which will be useful to designers, local governments and public bodies, policy makers, and all professionals working at local health agencies. Ten key points have been formulated: 1. climate change and management of adverse weather events; 2. land consumption, sprawl, and shrinking cities; 3. tactical urbanism and urban resilience; 4. urban comfort, safety, and security perception; 5. strengths and weaknesses of urban green areas and infrastructures; 6. urban solid waste management; 7. housing emergencies in relation to socio-economic and environmental changes; 8. energy aspects and environmental planning at an urban scale; 9. socio-assistance and welfare network at an urban scale: importance of a rational and widespread system; and 10. new forms of living, conscious of coparticipation models and aware of sharing quality objectives. Design strategies, actions, and policies, identified to improve public health and wellbeing, underline that the connection between morphological and functional features of urban context and public health is crucial for contemporary cities and modern societies.

The ongoing pandemic of COVID-19, which nowadays has exceeded 2.5 million notified infections in the world and about 200,000 deaths, is a strong reminder that urbanization has changed the way that people and communities live, work, and interact, and it's necessary to make resilient the systems and local capacities to prevent the spread of infectious diseases. How we can re-design the concept of Public Health in relation to the built environment and the contemporary cities? According to the previous statements and scenario, aim of this paper is to integrate the Urban Health strategic objectives, focusing the possible responses, both immediate and medium-long term, to the current environmental, social, and economic aspects of the "period" of physical distancing. Results. Immediate Actions are 01. program the flexibility of city schedules; 02. plan a smart and sustainable mobility network; 03. define a neighborhood services' plan; 04. develop a digitization of the urban context, promoting the smart communities; 05. re-think the accessibility to the places of culture and tourism. Medium-long term Actions are 06. design the indoor flexibility of domestic living spaces; 07. re-think building typologies, fostering the presence of semi-private or collective spaces; 08. renovate the basic care services' network; 09. integrate the existing environmental emergency plans, with those related to the health emergencies; 10. improve stakeholders' awareness of the factors affecting Public Health in the cities. The Decalogue of Public Health opportunities may provide a useful basis for Designers (Architects and Urban Planners), Policy Makers, Public Health experts and Local Health Agencies, in promoting actions and policies aimed to transform our cities in healthier and Salutogenic living environments. (www.actabiomedica.it).

The purpose of the scoping review is to explore the relationship between housing conditions, indoor environmental quality (IEQ), and mental health implications on human well-being. In fact, time spent at home increased due to the recent COVID-19 lockdown period, and social-sanitary emergencies are expected to grow due to the urbanization phenomenon. Thus, the role of the physical environment in which we live, study, and work, has become of crucial importance, as the literature has recently highlighted. This scoping review, conducted on the electronic database Scopus, led to the identification of 366 articles. This, after the screening processes based on the inclusion criteria, led to the final inclusion of 31 papers related specifically to the OECD area. The review allowed the identification of five housing conditions [house type, age, and floor level; housing qualities; household composition; neighborhood; green spaces] that, by influencing the IEQ parameters, had impacts on the mental health outcomes addressed. By synthesizing the contributions of the review, a list of design recommendations has been provided. These will serve as a basis for future researchers, from which to develop measures to reduce inequalities in housing by making them healthier, more resilient, and salutogenic.

Recent studies in public health have focused on determining the influences of the built environment on the population’s physical and mental health status. In order to promote active transport and physical activity, considered favorable behavior for the prevention non-communicable diseases (NCDs) such as obesity, it is necessary to reduce the negative effects of the built environment and develop positive ones, such as, for example, a walkable urban space. The aim of the research is to define a city’s walkability assessment framework capable of highlighting points of strength and weakness in its urban environment. All of the aspects that have a direct influence (evidence-based) on fostering the adoption of healthy lifestyles or promoting active transport as a strategy to increase the level of physical activity due to the existence of daily urban travel should be considered. After conducting a literature review aimed at identifying all of the existing assessment tools, 20 research studies were examined in detail. The new evaluation method arises from the comparison and critical selection of the various qualitative–quantitative indicators found, integrated into a multi-criteria analysis structure of dual-scale survey, with reference to walkability and paying attention to those indicators that have implications on health promotion. The new assessment framework, named Milano Walkability Measurement (MWM), is applicable in different urban contexts and was tested in two different areas of Milan. The Macro dimension (i.e., Density, Diversity, and Design criteria) refers to the urban scale and examines the city from a top view. It describes quantitatively the overall urban factors (urban area size equal to 1.5 Km²; typology of data: archival). The Micro dimension (i.e., Usefulness, Safeness, Comfort, and Aesthetics criteria) investigates the city at the street scale level. It describes qualitatively features of the outdoor spaces (road length of about 500/700 mt; typology of data: observational). Finally, the framework was weighted by comparison with a panel of experts. The expected results were reflected in the design recommendations based on the collected qualitative-quantitative data. The developed assessment method brings innovative criteria such as the multi-scaling assessment phase (Macro and Micro) and the ability to take into consideration aspects that according to the literature have relationships with health promotion linked to the improvement of a healthy lifestyle, related to daily active transportation choices. The design recommendations are useful both to policy-makers, to make evidence-based specific choices, and to designers, to understand what aspects of the urban environment must be improved or implemented in order to promote a walkable city.