Conclusion

Health implications of urbanization and urban environment have been popular multi-disciplinary themes in academic literature. In China, suburbanization stimulated by the spread of commodity housing is distinctive, so its effects on human health are worthy of investigation to fill the research gap. Three commodity housing estates in the suburban Panyu District, Guangzhou were investigated and assessed in terms of their residents’ health performance, its relationship with the characteristics of the residential environment, and residential behavior patterns, identifying the factors that affect health in relation to the residential environment and health-related residential behaviors. This study then interprets the factors that are crucial to the creation of health-promoting environment: examining the transactions between environmental and behavioral factors from a human ecological perspective, and explaining the institutional determinants of the residential environmental factors that affect health in housing development.