Creating Activity-Friendly Communities: Exploring the Intersections of Public Health and the Arts

Increasing physical activity in communities is a key public health strategy for chronic disease prevention and health promotion. Creating well-designed, activity-friendly communities requires partnerships beyond public health, and building community partnerships is an essential public health role. While public health leaders have been building coalitions with sectors such as transportation and land use to improve community health, many art practitioners and organizations are concurrently aligning their work with similar goals to improve quality of life in communities. Thus, the purpose of this commentary is to examine how public health can partner with the arts for community design efforts to increase physical activity.