Politics of Health Impact Assessment and Neighborhood Development in San Francisco: Lessons from the Healthy Development Measurement Tool

Public health attention to the “built environment” has dramatically increased awareness about the impacts of land use, transportation and community design on population health and well-being. The entrance of public health as a “stakeholder” in modern land use planning has generated both support and opposition, as well as increased demand for area-level data, evaluation tools, and policy/design strategies to address the health impacts of development.

In 2006, the San Francisco Department of Public Health (SFDPH) completed a two-year multi-stakeholder, community-based process that culminated in the creation of a comprehensive land use and health assessment tool, the Healthy Development Measurement Tool (HDMT). The HDMT provides planners, public agencies, and community stakeholders with metrics, including neighborhood-level data, maps, and development targets, to evaluate the extent to which urban development projects, plans and policies impact health. Designed to support accountable, transparent, and evidence-based policy-making, the HDMT uses a public health framework to connect physical and environmental planning to broader social and economic health resources.

SFDPH is currently applying the HDMT to a number of local development plans. These pilot applications provide insight into the health benefits, burdens, and tradeoffs of development; mitigations to promote health; and case studies of community engagement in land use planning and the democratization of public health data. Community stakeholders and SFDPH agree that using a systematic assessment tool strongly justifies public health participation in development planning and policy-making.

This session will introduce the HDMT, share lessons learned from local applications, and discuss how findings are used by stakeholders.