Place Matters for Health: Using Locally-Tailored Community Health Equity Reports to Compel Action to Eliminate Health Inequities

The Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies proposes a panel presentation and discussion to illustrate how locally-tailored Community Health Equity Reports (CHERs) can illuminate the relationship between place and health, and point to policy solutions that reduce the concentration of health risks in communities of color. With support from a grant from the National Institutes of Health, the Joint Center, working with research partners at the Virginia Commonwealth University Center on Human Needs, the Virginia Network for Geospatial Health Research, and the Joint Center's PLACE MATTERS teams, created a series of CHERs that examine the relationship between neighborhood-level demographics, health risks and resources, and health status. The CHERs revealed striking inequality in health status based on neighborhood. For example, in Bernalillo County, New Mexico, our research identified a 28-year variation in life expectancy across census tracts. In Boston, there is a differential life expectancy of 33 years between census tracts 2 miles apart, with a low of 58.9 years in Northern Roxbury compared to a high of 91.9 in Western Back Bay. In Orleans Parish (New Orleans), there is a 25.5-year disparity in life expectancy between zip codes. This panel presentation will feature the researchers who compiled and analyzed the data, as well as PLACE MATTERS' community partners who identified the key research questions and are using the reports to raise awareness of geographic inequities and push for policy solutions.