Land use and transportation equity is health equity: Strategies used by a healthcare organization to connect the dots

The built environment often determines resident's ability to access needed resources and services. For residents in low-income communities, the built environment is usually a barrier to jobs and essential goods and services, due to the lack of reliable and efficient public transportation, safe parks and trails for recreation and physical activity, and outlets for healthy food. The accessibility of these and other resources, including health care services, has a direct impact on the health of residents, making informed land use and transportation decisions not just about smart planning, but also a matter of ensuring health equity. Healthcare professionals have a unique voice and a powerful role in making the connections between health and these other fields. The presenter will describe four strategies that Kaiser Permanente, a not-for-profit healthcare organization, has implemented in order to support and accelerate efforts to improve community built environments so residents in underserved neighborhoods have access to the resources as described above. These strategies leverage the unique assets of the healthcare organization, including physician advocates, organizational endorsement of public policy, sharing health expertise with non-health sector colleagues, and engaging other organizations for philanthropic collaboration. The presenter will share examples of successes in leveraging the “power of the white coat” and health data from across the country and how these activities have helped to develop important relationships, to promote knowledge-sharing between health and non-health sectors, and in making “promotion of health” a criteria for decision-making and resource allocation in land use, planning, and transportation decisions.