A health impact assessment of a rural county's General Plan density options

Humboldt County is a predominantly rural California community of 127,000 residents. Following local legislative direction to increase public health participation in development and land use decisions, the Humboldt County Public Health Branch secured private funding to undertake a health impact assessment (HIA) of the General Plan Update, focusing on three different levels proposed for growth and density. HumPAL (Humboldt Partnership for Active Living, a community-based group) and Human Impact Partners (a consulting group experienced with urban HIA) collaborated on the effort. The HIA involved rural adaptation of an existing instrument, the Healthy Development Measurement Tool, collecting data on baseline conditions, forecasting health impacts of alternative growth scenarios, and recommending alternatives and mitigations for the General Plan. The assessment focused on 60 community-level health indicators under six domains: transportation; environmental quality; economic development; social cohesion; public infrastructure and goods and services; and healthy housing. Community focus groups suggested indicators for analysis. Literature review guided assessment of the impact of density options, generally favoring infill as the healthiest option. Results were presented to the Planning Commission and Board of Supervisors. The web-based rural Healthy Development Measurement Tool (HDMT) can be used to assess individual projects and policy implementation.

Health Impact Assessment is a diverse set of tools to analyze health impacts of land use planning and policies, and is fairly new to application in the United States. While HIA has been undertaken in urban settings, this is one of the first known application of HIA to land use planning in rural setting.