Call for papers: Generating stronger evidence to inform policy and practice: natural experiments on built environments, health behaviours and chronic diseases

The built environment has been associated with the development of chronic disease, and with health behaviours often seen as critical pathways for this relationship.1 2 Built environments refer to components of the physical environment that are human-made or human-modified and include structures and buildings, recreation facilities, green spaces and parks, transportation systems and community design. Natural experiments are interventions that occur without a researcher’s ability to manipulate the intervention or exposure to the intervention.3 4 Natural experiments offer the opportunity to evaluate the effects of “naturally occurring” interventions such as changes to the built environment (e.g. creation of a new bike path, park improvements, infrastructure changes to schools or workplaces, construction of a new recreation facility or grocery store) on health behaviours and chronic disease risk. Health Promotion and Chronic Disease Prevention in Canada: Research, Policy and Practice is seeking relevant topical research articles that present new findings or synthesize/review existing evidence on natural experiments of the built environment (or related policies) that influence health behaviours with implications for chronic disease prevention in Canada.