An Active Living Research report explores how designing active cities where communities, transportation systems, schools, and buildings make physical activity attractive and convenient produces a number of co-benefits for communities. 

Although creating "activity-friendly environments" is recommended to promote physical activity, their potential co-benefits have not been well described. Thus, researchers performed an extensive review of scientific and non-scientific literature to track the potential co-benefits of such environments for physical health, mental health, social benefits, safety/injury prevention, environmental sustainability, and economics.

The report's key findings include a summary of 418 higher-quality findings, and strong evidence of co-benefits. The authors urge decision makers and designers to consider how all systems and environments can be optimized for physical activity.

A peer-reviewed paper based on this report is available online through open access in the International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity.