Public Health Engineering for the Built Environment: Completing Sustainability

Good health is a prerequisite for sustainable development. From ancient times on environments are built with the good of man in mind, especially to extend his vital life span. At first most building could be considered as public health engineering. Built environments, however, always posed new risks that decreased sustainability of society. Recently, aging of society has produced peoples that are more susceptible to environmental influences. This asks for new building concepts and for a better tuning to individual needs and ambitions, leaving the consumer at all times master of technology. For the first time in history products and services may be designed and mass-produced that are both cheap and tailored to individual health and environmental needs, making a completion of sustainability of society possible. Developing concepts for health supportive dwellings, adapting present dwelling to individualization, constructing information tools and decision-support tools for consumers, professionals and policy makers, are all roads to increased sustainability. It is the aim of public health engineering for the built environment (PheBe) to travel these roads.