Emily McCullogh, Ph.D.<\/span><\/p>\n Abstract<\/b><\/p>\n This article introduces care ethics as a lens through which to examine and discuss the built environment in relation to road safety. Connections between the built environment and people\u2019s safety while travelling are well established and the language of care ethics has the potential to elevate our understanding of <\/span>how<\/span><\/i> the built environment influences the health and wellness of road users. This article will summarize care ethics and identify key links between the needs involved in caring and how they relate to the built environment. It will conclude by arguing that the design of the built environment is a matter of care that is of particular importance to road safety practitioners and researchers.<\/span><\/p>\n Introduction<\/b><\/p>\n The aim of this article is to introduce the language of care ethics as a useful tool for examining the built environment in relation to road safety. Doing so offers a new perspective on the role the built environment plays in our daily health and mobility by acknowledging and bringing to the forefront our collective human interdependence, vulnerability, and need (1). As stated in the <\/span>Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion<\/span><\/i>, \u201chealth is created by caring for oneself and others, by being able to take decisions and have control over one\u2019s life circumstances, and by ensuring that the society one lives in creates conditions that allow for the attainment of health by all its members\u201d (2 p4). The built environment is certainly considered part of the \u201cconditions\u201d that influence our health and utilizing the language of care ethics offers a novel understanding of exactly <\/span>how<\/span><\/i> the built environment is inextricably linked to our ability to care for ourselves and others.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Broadly, care ethics focuses on \u201chow people take proactive interest in others, assume responsibility for their needs, and take practical action to support their well-being\u201d (3 p1). While the built environment cannot be personified into a human capable of taking interest in others and responding to their needs (in the conventional sense), the built environment is crafted by humans in particular ways to support daily activities and travel. When we orient our thinking to imagine the built environment as an entity that has the potential to care and respond to the needs of its users the utility of care ethics, and its conceptual tools, provide valuable insight into the inadequacies of current built environments in relations to people\u2019s own care. Further, it illuminates how some built environment designs contribute greatly to the health and wellness of its users, which is of particular importance to road safety. As stated by Biglieri and Dean, \u201cwellbeing is not just related to individual attributes, but also to one\u2019s residential community environments\u201d (4 p1).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n A Need for a New Lens<\/b><\/p>\n The built environment can be defined as \u201cthe human-made surroundings that provide the setting for all human activity, including those places where people live, work, learn, rest, and play. These spaces range from rural streets to bustling downtowns and all the places in between\u201d (5 p1). The links between the built environment and people\u2019s health are well established (6-8), with researchers focusing on its role in active travel (9,10), access to green spaces (11,12), and traffic collisions (13,14), to name a few. Road traffic collisions are a leading cause of injury in Canada, with transport incidents costing $3.6 billion in 2018 (15). Further, there were 1,768 fatalities and 8,185 serious injuries resulting from traffic collisions in 2021 (16), demonstrating that the design of our communities and our cities has a significant impact on our health.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n These concerns are exacerbated when we consider the health and safety of vulnerable road users (VRUs): \u201cpedestrians, motorcyclists, and bicyclists are considered to be vulnerable road users since they do not have the protective shell of a vehicle in case of a collision\u201d (17 paragraph 1). However, it is important to note that researchers working in the realm of road safety have shifted the language of VRUs, drawing attention to the fact that road users are not inherently vulnerable but instead are made vulnerable by the built environments on which they travel (18). When we acknowledge that the design of the built environment directly impacts road users\u2019 safety, it becomes clearer that this is a matter of care.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n What is Care Ethics?\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n So, how can the language of care ethics elevate our understanding of how the built environment influences the safety of road users? Broadly, and as noted above, care ethics is a theory that views care as a relationship, where one acknowledges and responds to the needs of another (19). In a more practical sense,<\/span><\/p>\n Caring [can] be viewed as a species activity that includes everything that we do to maintain, continue, and repair our \u2018world\u2019 so that we can live in it as well as possible. That world includes our bodies, ourselves, and our environment, all of which we seek to interweave in a complex, life-sustaining web. (20 p40)<\/span><\/p>\n This expanded definition more clearly highlights the relational dimensions of care in the context of our everyday lives. While care ethics traditionally focused on relationships between persons, the theory can also be applied to our relationships with things and ideas (19) and how organizations are capable of caring for their membership, or not (21). This is of particular importance for the current conceptual exercise, which involves imagining the built environment as an entity capable of caring and responding to the needs of its users.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n To better understand care ethics, it is important to consider the relationship between three key concepts: care, agency, and fundamental needs. As noted above, <\/span>caring<\/span><\/i> can be thought of as a \u201cspecies activity that includes everything that we do to maintain, continue, and repair our \u2018world\u2019 so that we can live in it as well as possible\u201d (20 p40). The concept and practice of care has been addressed by many theorists over the years and another important definition of <\/span>caring<\/span><\/i> is \u201cthe process of responding to another\u2019s needs by understanding their self-determined ends, adopting those ends as one\u2019s own, and advancing them in an effort to cultivate, maintain or restore their agency\u201d (1 p79). This definition introduces the concept of <\/span>agency<\/span><\/i>, which is critical because it highlights the effects of good and poor care. <\/span>Agency<\/span><\/i> is defined as \u201cthe ability to achieve some manner of results in the world, to affect change in accordance with one\u2019s volition, and to maintain the ability to carry out projects (often self-determined) in a surrounding environment\u201d (1 p24). In other words, in order to function and thrive in the world, we need to be supported in ways that allow us to make decisions, take initiative, and contribute to our \u201clife sustaining web\u201d (20 p40) in particular ways. Lastly, needs are integral to care; specifically, <\/span>fundamental needs<\/span><\/i>, which are defined as needs \u201cthat must be met and cared for in order to establish, sustain, or restore agency\u201d (1 p11). Returning to the links between care and our collective interdependence and vulnerability, \u201call humans experience fundamental needs, and therefore require another person\u2019s attention and response in order to meet these needs (establishing, maintaining, or restoring their agency in the process)\u201d (1 pp52-53). It is these fundamental needs involved in caring that are useful for examining the built environment and considering how it may care (or not) for its users.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Fundamental Needs Involved in Caring\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n There are eleven fundamental needs involved in caring (Table 1), all of which are linked to personal agency. Recall the definition above; <\/span>agency<\/span><\/i> refers to one\u2019s ability to \u201cmaintain the ability to carry out projects (often self-determined) in a surrounding environment\u201d (1 p24), which requires a degree of health and safety in order to achieve. Given that the built environment significantly impacts people\u2019s health and safety, it is clear to see how care ethics is useful for enhancing our understanding of precisely <\/span>how<\/span><\/i>.<\/span><\/p>\n Table 1. Fundamental needs involved in caring.<\/b><\/p>\n