Bringing brain health home: the importance of housing and the urban environment for building this generation’s brain health

Brain health is not simply the absence of disease but the sum total of our physical, emotional, social and cognitive health. Brain health is strongly influenced by the social and physical environment, the surroundings and conditions in which we live. In this commentary we discuss the concept of Brain Health and Housing, a novel addition to our understanding of brain health, and how and why housing and the built environment are important determinants of brain health across the life course. While this is a novel concept, it is founded on accepted and emerging evidence of the impact of our environment on neurological, physical and mental health and provides and an additional and important lens to the public health approach to dementia risk reduction and the safeguarding of brain health.