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APHA Scientific Session and Event Listing

Recorded presentation

Lili Farhang, MPH, Rajiv Bhatia, MD, MPH, Cynthia Comerford, MA, Carolina Guzman, MPH, Manel Kappagoda, JD, MPH, and Shireen Malekafzali, MPHc. Program on Health, Equity and Sustainability, San Francisco Department of Public Health, 1390 Market Street, Suite 910, San Francisco, CA 94102, 415.252.3988, lili.farhang@sfdph.org

Evidence demonstrates that land use, transportation and community design are critical determinants of health. Traditional environmental health indicators, such as asthma rates or air quality, reflect downstream measures of built environment impacts but are seldom useful metrics for urban planners to evaluate the “healthiness” of development projects. Indicators such as open space access or housing affordability reflect environmental level determinants of health outcomes (i.e., injuries, stress and physical activity) and may serve as more useful metrics to analyze development among decision-makers. Adopting these measures as “indicators of community health”, acknowledges publicly the fact that population health is shaped by development policy.

Progress is being made towards accounting for the health benefits and burdens of development. The Eastern Neighborhoods Community Health Impact Assessment is a multi-stakeholder process analyzing how development in San Francisco affects attributes of the environment most important to health. One key outcome of this process is the “Measuring Healthy Development Tool,” that provides land use planners, public agencies, developers, and community stakeholders with a set of questions and measures that can used to assess to what extent urban development projects, plans and policies affect health.

Tool components include: 1) “Healthy City” objectives; 2) model statistics to measure whether a locality is meeting those objectives; 3) indicators to assess the impacts of proposed development projects, plans or policies; and, 4) Standards to measure whether those impacts are positive or negative.

This session will report on the tool's development and potential uses to improve land use within a health framework.

Learning Objectives:

• Discuss aspects of land use and development policy that can be leveraged to improve health.
• Review tools to incorporate built environment analysis into urban development processes.
• Examine the contribution of a local health department in the development of land use planning and policy-making
• Identify and discuss barriers and strategies for gaining legitimacy and support for land use and health work.

Related Web page: www.sfdph.org/phes/ENCHIA.htm

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Any relevant financial relationships? No

Recorded presentation