Designing better health

Internationally renowned health care expert Karen Lee will deliver two lectures on Nov. 20 as part of the Dean’s Lecture Series in the Faculty of Architecture.

Lee is senior advisor on Built Environment & Healthy Housing at the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. Lee has been the lead for the New York City Health Dept. in its work with 12 city agencies and non-government partners in the development of the award-winning Active Design Guidelines, published in January 2010.  Lee also teaches on the built environment and health at the Pratt Institute in New York, and is an adjunct professor at the Schools of Public Health at the University of Toronto and the University of Alberta (also a World Health Organization Collaborating Center for Non-Communicable Disease Policy) in Canada.

Lee is co-author on the recently released publications  Active Design  Supplement: Promoting Safety, and Active Design:  Affordable Designs for Affordable Housing presenting low-cost and cost-neutral active design strategies to address the epidemics of obesity and related chronic diseases.

Lee consults to and advises cities and organizations in Canada, Australia, Asia, Europe and Latin America as well as World Health Organization offices on issues related to the built environment and chronic diseases.

What: Karen Lee lectures: “The Key Roles of Community and Building Design in Protecting and Promoting Health”
When and where: Wednesday, Nov. 20, 2013,

• 12 p.m. in the Medical Rehabilitation Building, Bannaytne Campus
• 6 p.m. in Centre Space, John A. Russell Building, Fort Garry campus

For more information contact Brandy O’Reilly, Faculty of Architecture, University of Manitoba, 204-474-7938 (Brandy.OReilly@umanitoba.ca).