The Built Environment-A Missing "Cause of the Causes" of Non-Communicable Diseases

Kelvin L Walls; Mikael Boulic; John W D Boddy

doi:10.3390/ijerph13100956

The Built Environment-A Missing "Cause of the Causes" of Non-Communicable Diseases

Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2016 Sep 27;13(10):956. doi: 10.3390/ijerph13100956.

Authors

Kelvin L Walls¹, Mikael Boulic², John W D Boddy³

Affiliations

¹ Building Code Consultants Ltd., P.O. Box 99613, Newmarket, Auckland 1149, New Zealand. buildcode@xtra.co.nz.
² School of Engineering and Advanced Technology, Massey University, Auckland 0745, New Zealand. m.boulic@massey.ac.nz.
³ Urban Planning and Environmental Services, MWH Stantec, Level 3, 111 Carlton Gore Road, Auckland 0745, New Zealand. Doug.Boddy@mwhglobal.com.

Abstract

The United Nations "25 × 25 Strategy" of decreasing non-communicable diseases (NCDs), including cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, cancer and chronic respiratory diseases, by 25% by 2025 does not appear to take into account all causes of NCDs. Its focus is on a few diseases, which are often linked with life-style factors with "voluntary" "modifiable behavioral risk factors" causes tending towards an over-simplification of the issues. We propose to add some aspects of our built environment related to hazardous building materials, and detailed form of the construction of infrastructure and buildings, which we think are some of the missing causes of NCDs. Some of these could be termed "involuntary causes", as they relate to factors that are beyond the control of the general public.

Keywords: United Nations 25 × 25 Strategy; built environment; environmental factors; global NCD burden; hazardous building materials; involuntary causes; missing NCDs; missing causes; non-communicable diseases (NCDs); sick building syndrome.