Integration of Health Impact Assessment with the development of a community-driven neighborhood sustainability plan

Community Solutions, partnering with Michael Singer Studio, Georgia Health Policy Center and the Health Impact Project, a collaboration of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and The Pew Charitable Trusts, is leading the development of a Northeast Neighborhood Sustainability Plan informed by a Health Impact Assessment (NNSP-HIA). We are one of three National demonstration sites linking HIA’s to community development projects.  HIAs use a flexible, data-driven approach that identifies the health consequences of new policies and develops practical strategies to enhance their health benefits and minimize adverse effects.

As part of our larger neighborhood improvement initiative, the Northeast Neighborhood Partnership Initiative (NNP), this plan will help outline the best opportunities for increasing the infrastructural and environmental sustainability of the Northeast neighborhood and positively impacting the health, safety and economic opportunities of residents. NNP, coordinated by Community Solutions and supported by a broad base of partners and residents, is working to improve, simultaneously, the health and economic security of residents and the physical condition of the neighborhood which suffers from high unemployment rates and poor public health.

The NNSP is being developed through direct interactions with community residents and institutions as an action-focused vision for the neighborhood. It will provide background and precedents for recommendations, use the HIA as a decision guide for prioritizing steps, and provide schedules, budgets and strategies for immediate implementation. To that aim the NNSP-HIA will emphasize the relationships between its various components; describing how they interrelate and how their combined value is greater than their mere sum.