The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Division of Community Health, as part of its "Making Healthy Living Easier" initiative, has produced the Built Environment Assessment Tool (BE Tool), which includes a manual on understanding and measuring the built environment.  This document is aimed at community program staff to help them learn which built environment features they should measure based on which health behaviors or outcomes they are trying to affect.

The "BE Tool" measures core features and qualities of the built environment that are known to affect health, especially walking, biking, and other types of physical activity.

The core features assessed in the BE Tool include:

• Built environment infrastructure, such as road types, curb cuts and ramps, intersections and crosswalks, traffic control, and public transportation.
• Walkability, including access to safe, attractive sidewalks and paths with inviting features.
• Bikeability, such as the presence of bike lane or bike path features.
• Recreational sites and structures.
• Food environment, such as access to grocery stores, convenience stores, and farmers markets.

In addition, users can add questions or modules if more detail about an aspect of the built environment is desired (e.g. nutrition environment or pedestrian environment).