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Howard Frumkin, MD, MPH, DrPH

The author is with the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health, Rollins School of Public Health, Emory University, Atlanta, Ga.

Correspondence: Requests for reprints should be sent to Howard Frumkin, MD, MPH, DrPH, Emory University, Rollins School of Public Health, Department of Environmental and Occupational Health, 1518 Clifton Rd, Atlanta, GA 30322 (e-mail: medhf{at}sph.emory.edu).

"Sense of place" is a widely discussed concept in fields as diverse as geography, environmental psychology, and art, but it has little traction in the field of public health. The health impact of place includes physical, psychological, social, spiritual, and aesthetic outcomes.

In this article, the author introduces sense of place as a public health construct. While many recommendations for "good places" are available, few are based on empirical evidence, and thus they are incompatible with current public health practice. Evidence-based recommendations for healthy place making could have important public health implications.

Four aspects of the built environment, at different spatial scales—nature contact, buildings, public spaces, and urban form—are identified as offering promising opportunities for public health research, and potential research agendas for each are discussed.

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