Balancing equity, Assessing health impacts, Ensuring effectiveness

This interactive presentation will focus on the role of health impact assessment (HIA) in community design. The master plan and HIA recently completed of the South Lincoln low-income housing redevelopment project, funded by the Denver Housing Authority, will be highlighted. The multi-disciplinary team for this future mixed-use, mixed-income community includes a health professional, urban designers, landscape architects, developers, energy specialists and transportation planners. In the diverse South Lincoln neighborhood, approximately 38% live in poverty, more than half of the children are poor, over half are Latino. Approximately 24% are obese, only 13% consume high fiber foods daily, and just 62% have health care coverage. The project's vision is to transform South Lincoln into a green, healthy, desirable, and safe neighborhood that achieves multiple health related objectives including reducing noise, increasing physical activity, and providing social support.

The Healthy Development Measurement Tool (HDMT) was used as the guide for the HIA and master plan because of its comprehensiveness and focus on social equity issues. Presenters also customized the HDMT to be more Denver specific and will be discussed with the audience. The presentation will also focus on details within each phase of the HIA, data analysis, along with proposed recommendations on social cohesion, equity, accessibility, food and safety.

The process of conducting this HIA has had very positive immediate outcomes that will be discussed. For example, strong engagement from a City Council member that led to policy change within the planning agency that now requires public health considerations of redevelopment projects.