This paper examines and urges expansion of principles behind Healthy Communities, the Community Reinvestment Act, Empowerment Zones, and Environmental Justice to develop strategies for integrated health and economic development planning and applies those principles to a community in distress. Lawrence, Massachusetts leads the state in unemployment, households in poverty, infant mortality, lead poisoning and asthma hospitalization. Standard economic development claims to expand opportunities for low-income people – disproportionately vulnerable to poor health outcomes – by promising job development and home ownership. Advocates for health planning and policy development similarly argue that improved health outcomes result in greater worker productivity. However, actual planning in health and economics are undertaken in isolation. Economic development is place-based: it does not automatically produce healthy people. In spite of state and national prosperity, in Lawrence, thousands of families have lost welfare, food stamps and health insurance, and homelessness has substantially increased. Revitalization has not occurred in Lawrence. However, given current approaches, were economic development ideas implemented, prosperity of the place would come at the expense of current residents. Improvements in community health indicators through revitalization can mask transience imposed on the poorest residents by rising housing costs and shifts from low-skill manufacturing to higher-skill service jobs. Abatement of environmental injustices (eg. lead paint, Brownfields) cost money that can substitute one population for another and move displaced residents to more affordable, and more blighted, neighborhoods. For people in Lawrence, only an integrated approach to health and economic planning can improve long term health outcomes.
Learning Objectives: 1. Those participating will understand the need for integration of health and economic planning. 2. Those participating in the session will be able to describe the health status of Lawrence, Massachusetts. 3. Participants would have an understanding of the impact of national economic policies on distressed communities
Keywords: Urban Health, Environmental Justice
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
Organization/institution whose products or services will be discussed: None
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.