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Our lived experiences are complex, dynamic and increasingly connected locally and globally through virtual realities that call for an evolution and responsiveness from the field of architecture education. To ensure future built environments are designed to nurture healing and health, this paper aims to address a critical need in architecture education to integrate knowledge of health and social-behavioral disciplines in students' course work. The authors will outline the process of preparing a new multidisciplinary course on health and the built environment (HBE) at the School of Architecture and Planning at Morgan State University in Baltimore, USA, as an effort to challenge the barriers of discipline-specific pathways to learning in the field of architecture.

The central question is how to develop an active learning pedagogy to foster a multidisciplinary learning environment focused on the “practice” (how to) of human-design-oriented approaches to improve the capability of built and natural environments to promote health and healing. The course intentionally centered on the real-life experiences of students to ground their new understanding of health and well-being fields. The course proposal went through an extensive peer-review process of reviewers from the National Institute of Health (NIH) and other departments at Morgan State University to ensure a balance between health- and architecture-specific curricula with a transdisciplinary approach to understanding complex health issues.

This paper shows the effectiveness of tools and techniques applied in the course to challenge architectural students to integrate various health and behavior perspectives in their designs and to apply health and healing principals to their current and future design projects.

While there are courses in American universities that offer a traditional introduction to health concerns related to the built environment, there is limited focus on the perspective of the design field approach to improve health and healing outcomes.

The purpose of this research is to identify quick, effective and affordable architectural design solutions to improve the health of patients, visitors and staff, in an underfunded community healthcare center (CHC) in Baltimore.

Both qualitative (individual and Focus group interviews) and quantitative methods (space syntax analysis and questionnaire survey) are used to assess the healing environment. The questionnaires cover interior and exterior environment related questions.

The questionnaire identifies three issues related to wayfinding, interior design, and access to natural light. The findings demonstrate that the waiting area, exam room and laboratory need to be upgraded. Incorporation of some other interior components including, wall art, plants, music, signage are also suggested by the respondents.

Very few studies in the USA have been done to understand the effects of architectural design to create a healing environment on the community scale.

The advancement of medical care during the late 19th century and the rising importance of public health led to the creation of a healthcare infrastructure in Iran in the early decades of the 20th century. The study focuses on the formation of this infrastructure through the study of historical materials as well as the study of case studies built in the Gilan region in the north of Iran.

This paper begins with a review of medical, sociological and historical resources, then turns to field studies and interviews as methods to focus on the medical transformations in the Gilan region.

This study offers four key findings: First of all, most studies tend to focus more on traditional medicine in Iran than on the initiation and spread of modern medicine. Secondly, foreign physicians and missionaries played an influential role in shaping the culture of Iranian hospital care. Thirdly, the interactions with and influences coming from Iran’s northern neighbors in Gilan transformed the province into an educated, freedom-seeking society. And finally, in its early stages, hospital construction in Iran followed local architectural traditions.

In the case of Gilan, the core structures of urban hospitals were similar in their pavilion typology to those that had been common in Gilan for centuries.

Examining the impact of socioeconomic status (SES) and expenses spent on food preparation on nutritional intake has always been one of the critical concerns for policymakers. This study aims to investigate the association between household food expenditure as well as SES and dietary nutrient intake in Kermanshah, Iran.

In this cross-sectional study, households were randomly selected from different strict in Kermanshah, Iran. Data were collected with an SES questionnaire, a demographic data collection form, a weekly food purchase checklist and a food record. The authors performed the analysis of covariance to determine the relationship of dietary nutrient intake of study participants across quintile categories of SES and total food expenses per day.

Out of 125 households, 119 households including 401 people finished the study. A significant association was observed between higher SES and higher intake of vitamin B2 (p-value = 0.03). Moreover, the household members at the top level of total food expenses per day had significantly greater dietary nutrient intake of energy (p < 0.001), potassium (p < 0.001), magnesium (p < 0.001), calcium (p < 0.001), zinc (p < 0.001), vitamin B2 (p < 0.001), B6 (p < 0.001), B12 (p = 0.002) and vitamin C (p = 0.04).

In our study, higher dietary nutrient intake was observed in the household members at the highest level of total food expenses daily as well as SES. Therefore, governments and policymakers should pay basic attention to optimizing food costs and improving the economic status of people.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the effect of fasting on anthropometry and body composition in fasting obese and non‐obese subjects.

In total, 25 volunteers (male and female) were recruited during Ramadan. Age, sex, weight, height, waist and hip circumference and menstrual cycle status (in case of females) were recorded on day 1, and on day 21 weight and waist and hip circumference were also recorded. Similarly, bioelectrical impedance analysis (BIA) was performed on days 1 and 21 for the assessment of changes in body composition. From weight and height, basal metabolic Index (BMI) was determined. Waist‐hip ratio was determined from the waist and hip circumferences.

Weight was significantly (p<0.001) reduced in obese individuals on day 21 and accompanied by significant (p<0.01) reduction in waist hip ratios. BIA showed no significant change in the intra or extra cellular water. However, there has been shift of water between the two compartments and there was a strong positive correlation (r=0.9) between the fat free mass and total body water and negative association (r=−0.9) with total body water.

This study indicates that fasting could be a useful tool for the management of body weight without having a major shift in the body composition.