How Should We Respond to Spatial Injustice in Health Care Organizations?

Abstract

Hostile design is a built environment strategy to discourage unwanted behaviors or limit use by unwanted users in a space. This commentary on a case identifies how hostile design choices perpetuate spatial injustice in both health care settings and the surrounding community and argues that health care organizations have duties to mitigate adverse health consequences of such spatial injustices. This commentary then describes strategies for identifying overt and covert hostile design of health care spaces and proposes future practices and translational research to make health care environments’ designs accessible, approachable, and more just.