Investigating the Areas of Cooperation and Linkage of Urban Planning and Public Health

Although public health and urban planning have been created with the common purpose of preventing the spread of diseases and urban disasters, the realties and connections of these two fields are now very little and limited. Separation and isolation of these two disciplines have caused many problems. One of the most important of these has been the failure of the above disciplines to solve the daily problems of people. Another important consequence of this separation is the lack of recognition and understanding of the relationship between the built environment and health. This problem is most often related to the poor and this group suffers from its real consequences. The purpose of the present article is to study the historical links between the two areas of urban planning and public health. It then tries to identify the bottlenecks that have arisen later on. These investigations ultimately recognize the challenges associated with the linkage of these disciplines, and by identifying the factors that create this separation, suggestions are made to bring these areas closer on the basis of socio-biological theory and environmental justice. Eventually, this set provides the initial framework for a two-way link between these disciplines; a framework that can better address health problems and urban planning. Since most of the health and planning problems are encountered in poor neighborhoods and margins, this link will bring the most effects in this section.