Oral

Whereas public health and urban planning were once “joined at the hip” when the issues of our “built environment” revolved around toxic fumes from nearby industrial smokestacks or problems with water sanitation, the 21st century has fortuitously re-opened the door through the smart growth and sustainability movements for collaboration and novel partnership among public health and planning stakeholders.   Vitally necessary are those concerned with social justice, as evidenced by this year’s conference theme and  those attempting strategically to align related goals of our national progress on climate change, transportation, clean air/water/energy,   green jobs, etc.     This 90 minute oral session moderated by Dr. Brian Stone of Georgia Tech (http://www.coa.gatech.edu/~stone/) brings together representatives of organizations (Denver’s regional planning organization--DrCOG, an EPA policymaker, and two academic research/policy institutes in the western United States) that are together making a pronounced difference at this exciting, re-emerging interface of planning and public health. Their presentations will show historic, current, and future challenges and opportunities which must be addressed if collectively we are to achieve a healthy, sustainable, equitable, economically prosperous America in this century. A goal of the session is facilitating discussion among the speakers about the strategies they see working, ones that will be critically important as we nearly double our current population by 2100, primarily through growth in the West and South. A very local flavor will commence the session with the entire audience using the MetroQuest visioning tool (http://denverregion.metroquest.com/MetroQuest.html) used by DrCOG. Using electronic “voting pads”, attendees will vote on land use and other decisions which impact outcomes such as affordable housing and transportation investments which are addressed and illustrated by the EPA expert who follows. The two western research institutes (Desert Research Institute and Brookings Mountain West) represented in the session are charged with bringing growth, sustainability, population and economic vulnerability, and opportunity into the discussion. Hopefully, then, these issues are all seen to be centrally related to health and to our social justice theme, including work carried out at regional air, water, and climate centers and to a policy focus on smart growth, workforce, and quality of life issues.  

Session Objectives: 1. Provide one example of how to “normalize” environmental justice as a standard practice with regard to planning and developing our communities 2. Describe a communication strategy and measurement tool for looking at the options in density of growth in a region which may be applied interactively through the internet or a public forum 3. Name a job cluster strongly identified with the megaregion closest to where you were born, reside, went to graduate school, plan to retire, etc.. 4. With imminent water shortages/droughts as a precondition, make brief lists of important issues with a.) direct and b.) indirect relevance to public health that the future holds for the Rocky Mountain or Desert Southwestern States.

CE Credits: Medical (CME), Health Education (CHES), Nursing (CNE), Public Health (CPH)