Aggravation of human urbanization process has caused a series of ecological environment problems, resulting in the aggravation of contradiction between human and nature. Especially the continuous occurrence of epidemic disastersgreatly endangers human health, destroys urban order, endangers social stability and sustainability, and causes irreparable social and economic losses. Based on an analysis of major epidemic disasters in the history, this paper from a perspective of ecological planning looks for the root causes of the epidemic disasters and the problems existing in ecological planning, such as lack of attention to biology, especially to microorganisms. The study focuses on the relationship between people and biology (animals, plants, and micro organisms) and improves the concept and strategy of healthy city construction and ecological planning. For future ecological planning, it proposes to establish and improve the living environment for the harmonious coexistence of human and biology (animals, plants and microorganisms), to strengthen biological planning, especially the planning of animals, plants and microorganisms, to change the concept from people-oriented to the unity of man and nature, and to build a life and health community of human and nature.

Urbanization has greatly promoted human living environment and quality of life, and also caused many “urban diseases”. Healthycity construction as an effective means to cure “urban disease” has aroused common concern of mankind. This paper focuses on the hierarchical characteristics of the urban complex system and discusses the scale conversion effect of active planning intervention for healthy cities. Three levels have been proposed for the active planning intervention: Macro-scale, medium-scale and micro-scale. At the macro-scalelevelthe planning interventionisto cut off the harmfulsource to formulate disaster prevention and action programs against disasters. At the medium-scalelevelthe planning intervention is to strengthen the ability of self-regulation within the urban system to improve urban air quality, recycle water ecosystems, and mitigate heat island effects. The planning intervention atthe micro-scalelevel is tolead a healthy lifestyle to build a high-quality living environment and comprehensively improve people's health.

Recently, the research on the relationship between geographical environment exposure and public health has attracted notable attention. The concept of geographical environment includes three dimensions, namely natural environment, built environment and social and humanistic environment. Whereas, health refers to a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being. As a result, medical geography, which focuses on the association between disease and environment, is gradually shifting into the field of health geography. Differences in the effects of geographical environment exposure on health of different populations as well as the environmental justice research are important topics of health geography. The research on geographic environmental exposure and health effects, which couples spatiotemporal behavior and multi-source spatiotemporal big data, is deepening and developing rapidly. On the whole, the new research paradigm of “geographical environment exposurespatiotemporal behavior-health” will help to further expand the future research in the field of health geography.

The relationship between built environment and physical activity has become a focus in the research of healthy cities. Based on Web of Science and CNKI, this paper charts out recent research progress by literature review using the keywords of built environment, physical activity and walkability. The built environment factors affecting physical activity areclassified into ‘2D spatial elements’ and ‘3D spatial elements’. The future research needs to: 1) deepen the research about ‘3D elements’ with a focus on spatial perception; 2) carry out more detailed research based on individual spatiotemporal behavior; 3) pay more attention to the comprehensive health effect of physical activity under multiple impacts of built environment, air pollution and other factors.

Existing studies show that residents' health is related to many factors of the built environment, residents' perception of built environment can affect their stress status and physiological health. Therefore, measurement of built environment perception is an important link to establish the relationship of health and built environment. The measurement methods of residents' perception of built environment are summarized in ths paper as follows: Perceivor evaluation, researcher monitoring, and digital technology assistance. The main contents, application scope, application level of the three methods are summarized, both advantages and disadvantages of various methods are evaluated. Some suggestions are put forward to combine the existing measurement methods with cloud computing, modern neuroimaging, and artificial intelligence (AI).

The travel behavior of the elderly is closely related to their health status. The behavior not only demonstrates but also affectstheir health status. Analyzing the travel behaviors of the elderly from a perspective of health has a great interestto thebuilding a healthy city and improving the living quality and health status of the elderly. Based on the conceptualizations of the old generation's travel behaviors, this paper reviews the previous studies to explore their travel modes, purposes and intensity. The results show that 1) older people's daily mobility declines with age; 2) travel behaviors have changed from survivalmotivated to entertainment-motivated; 3) the situations differ in different regions. Optimizing the public environment is of great significance to improve the life quality and health condition of the elderly. It is pointed thatexpanding research scope, dynamic and comprehensive analysis, and the interdisciplinary approachmay have positive effect on the understanding of health and travel behaviors of the elderly and benefit the policy recommendations as well.

The influence of urban built environment on residents' physical activities has been a hot topic of multidisciplinary research in public health, preventive medicine and environmental science at home and abroad. Improving public health by promoting residents' daily physical activity has been confirmed by numerous studies. This paper summarizes the existing research and refines the existing research progress of the built environment and physical activity from different research perspectives. Through a summary and induction of relevant literature, this paper analyzes the core elements of the built environmentinterms of behavior characteristics, social attributes, and a specific body perspective.Finallyit points outthe future research directions.

Allocation of medical resources and residents' health seeking behavior reflect the supply and demand perspectives of a medical system, respectively. The relevant research is of great significance to promote the equalization of basic public service and solve the structural contradiction between supply and demand of medical resources. The issue of accessibility to medical resources has attracted much attention in geography for a long time, while little research has focused on the health seeking behavior. Moreover, health seeking behavior from a spatial perspectiveis relatively insufficient in medical science and public health. This study reviews the existing research on accessibility to medical resources and health seeking behavior in geography and medical science. In addition,it constructs a “space-health care seeking-health” research frameworkwith theories of human geography and urban planning, and methodology of behaviorism, accessibility models, and decision-making models of health seeking behavior. It attempts to explore the relationship among accessibility to medical resources, health seeking behavior and health from the individual level, so as to provide aresearch basis for the follow-up study.

Food deserts are commonly defined as the socioeconomically disadvantaged areas lacking of or with restricted access to healthy foods. Understanding food deserts and their association with public health from the lens of social justice is of great theoretical and practical significance for healthy city planning and design. After summarizing the food desertconceptualizations, this paper proposes a conceptual framework for understanding food deserts and then reviews the relevant literaturefrom three aspects: healthy food accessibility, socioeconomic inequalities in healthy foods provision, and health consequences of food deserts. Results show that (1) cross-regional comparative analysis is helpful for understanding food deserts with different socioeconomic contexts; (2) an interdisciplinary approach is essential for understanding food deserts; and (3) a quantitative method of related policyperformance is critical for addressing food deserts.