Grant Period : Dec 2024 - Jun 2026
Faculty : TAN Shin Bin
Cities are high-density, high stimuli environments which can generate tremendous amounts of cognitive burden and stress on the human body, and are thus widely perceived to be detrimental to the health of its inhabitants (Ancora et al 2022, Buttazzoni et al 2021, Freeman 1994). Yet at the same time, cities are celebrated as dynamic entities–full of economic resources and opportunities, culture and heritage, creative and vibrant communities, amenities and services –all of which arguably contribute to one’s well-being (Ala-Mantila et al 2018, Florida et al 2013, MacKerron and Mourato 2009, Wang and Wang 2016, Moeinaddini et al 2020, Seresinhe et al 2019). These two characteristics of cities pull in opposite directions when it comes to the overall health and wellbeing of its inhabitants.
However, existing scholarship linking urban environmental characteristics to health often focus on the static, tangible environmental features such as access to green spaces, amenities, and public transit (Melis et al., 2015; Wang et al., 2021), rather than the more subjective experiences of the built environment like negative stressors like noise pollution from traffic and construction, smells, perceived thermal discomfort, sense of crowdedness in public spaces, as well as positive elements such as aesthetic beauty, perception of vibrancy or peace. This is likely because such data on the more transient and ephemeral aspects of the built environment that are ‘subjectively experienced’ are hard to systematically collect and monitor.
Specific to Singapore, research on health within the built environment suffers from similar gaps. In Singapore, over the years, researchers as well as government agencies have made available data on the physical aspects of Singapore’s built environment, such as land use plans, massing models of existing buildings, transport networks and stations, and the locations of key amenities like parks, libraries, food outlets and others. Unsurprisingly, larger scale, nationally representative place-based health-related studies conducted in Singapore thus often focus exclusively on physical characteristics of the urban environment (e.g. Tan et al 2021, Park et al 2021). What is lacking however is data on the more transient and ephemeral aspects of the built environment which act as negative stressors or coping resources, and which are often ‘subjectively experienced’
Focusing only on physical built environment characteristics leaves a big gap in holistic understanding of how the urban experience might affect people’s health, both physical and mental, and well-being. Given the subjective experiences oftentimes involve qualitative data that describes the mechanism of how the places contribute to their health and well-being, a methodological innovation is also needed to gather and adequately analyze this data in a systematic way. Plugging this gap would represent a major contribution to the field of research on built environment and health, as well as policy-makers grappling with how to create healthier urban environments.