Explanation of Factors Influencing Health: Residents-Environment Transactions and Institutional Factors

Factors associated with physical and mental health have been identified from residential environment and residential behavior, respectively. However, the mutual effects of environmental and behavioral factors have not been considered in previous analysis chapters. As discussed in Chap. 2 , people-environment congruity is the essence of a health-promoting environment, so examination of residents-environment transactions could help to understand the interactions between environmental and behavioral factors and to identify the issues in the creation of a health-promoting environment. Furthermore, since the residential environmental factors that influence health are determined by housing development, it is argued that institutional factors in housing development could have great impact on the formation of health-promoting environments. Thus, this chapter aims to explain how the factors affecting health have been formulated through people-environment transactions in suburban living and how the residential environment has been affected by the SCHEs development institutionally.