Healthy Community Design News

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Healthy Community Design News July 2014 Dear Healthy Community Design News Subscribers, C mon Get Happy: Creating Happy and Healthier Communities, a session I helped organize for the The Congress for

1 Healthy Community Design News July 2014 Dear Healthy Community Design News Subscribers, C mon Get Happy: Creating Happy and Healthier Communities, a session I helped organize for the The Congress for New Urbanism 22 ( was one of the most-well attended sessions at the multi-day event. Charles Montgomery (Happy City: Transforming our Lives Through Urban Design), Naomi Sachs (Therapeutic Landscapes: An Evidence-Based Approach to Designing Healing Gardens and Restorative Outdoor Spaces), and David Sloan Wilson (The Neighborhood Project: Using Evolution to Improve My City, One Block at a Time) discussed how designers, engineers and citizens can use design to improve human experience and make the urban landscape happier, healthier and more resilient. Is it possible to create an evidence-based tool to help planners and citizens understand the design+happiness connection and increase social capital in their communities? The session speakers and I welcome your thoughts. Four years ago I took the National Charrette Institute s (NCI) Charrette Training System. Afterwards, I suggested to instructor and NCI CEO Bill Lennertz to include health in the charrette process. I am pleased to announce that the 2 nd edition of his co-authored The Charrette Handbook, released April 2014, now includes: How to implement CDC s Healthy Community Design Checklist Toolkit elements into the charrette process; How to engage public health professionals in the charrette process from pre-planning to the final charrette public meeting; and A sidebar authored by me on integrating health into the charrette process. Just announced: Through support from CDC s Healthy Community Design Initiative, the National Association of City and County Health Officials (NACCHO) has released a competitive funding opportunity for HIAs spearheaded by local health departments (LHDs). Application deadline is August 22. See details below under Funding and Award Opportunities Until next time, keep up the great work! Charles Green, CGreen1@cdc.gov There's lots of people in this world who spend so much time watching their health that they haven't the time to enjoy it.

Josh Billings Upcoming Meetings and Conferences August 10-13, Seattle, WA: Institute of Transportation Engineers Annual Meeting http://www.ite.org/meetings/index.

2 Josh Billings Upcoming Meetings and Conferences August 10-13, Seattle, WA: Institute of Transportation Engineers Annual Meeting August 13-15, Sacramento, CA: 4 th Safe Routes to School National Conference September 8-11, Pittsburgh, PA: Pro Walk Pro Bike Pro Space September 21-24, Minneapolis, MN: Rail~Volution Conference September 24-26, Washington, DC: EcoDistricts Summit September 30-October 2, Detroit, MI: Meeting of the Minds October 7-8, Dubuque, IA: 7 th Annual Growing Sustainable Communities Conference November 11-14, Savannah, GA: National Preservation Conference November 15-19, New Orleans, LA: American Public Health Association 142nd Annual Meeting and Exposition November 21-24, Denver, CO: American Society of Landscape Architects Annual Meeting Call for Proposals Call for Educational Proposals, American Institute of Architects (due August 15) AIA is seeking proposals for their 2015 conference (to be held in Atlanta, GA May 15-16, 2015) for their Design & Health track that focus on strategies and concepts that imbue built environment design with health outcomes. Priority areas include: access to nature, physical activity, safety & social equity, environmental integrity, and sensory environments.

3 Training September 14-15, 2014, Oakland CA: 2014 HIA of the Americas Workshop Hosted by the Society of Practitioners of HIA, the 2-day workshop will focus on building a community of HIA practitioners through networking and sharing ideas and tools to elevate the practice of HIA, as well as to promote excellence in the field by discussing best practices, tackling challenging HIA-related issues, and disseminating resources and work products developed by the HIA of the Americas workgroups. Funding and Award Opportunities Funding Opportunity for HIA in Local Health Departments (deadline August 22, 2014, 5pm ET) Through support from CDC s Healthy Community Design Initiative, the National Association of City and County Health Officials (NACCHO) will release in July a competitive funding opportunity for HIAs spearheaded by local health departments (LHDs). Applications will be due in August. Approximately three awards of $15,000 each will be awarded to LHDs to engage in activities that will lead to the completion of an HIA during the project period, approximately September 2014-May HIAs should focus on transportation, land use, parks and recreation, community design, or energy. An Informational call about the RFA will be held Tuesday, August 5, 2014 from 1:00-2:00 EDT. The call will be recorded and posted to the Web site listed above afterwards. Please register for the call: Please contact healthycommdesign@naccho.org with any questions. EPA 2015 National Award for Smart Growth Achievement Call for Applications (deadline September 5, 2014, 5pm ET) EPA is seeking applications for the 2015 National Award for Smart Growth Achievement. The competition is open to public-sector, private-sector, and nonprofit organizations that have used smart growth principles to improve communities environmentally, socially, and economically. EPA seeks to recognize urban, suburban, and rural communities that have used smart growth approaches that involve a broad variety of stakeholders, are innovative, and could be replicated elsewhere. The categories for 2015 are: Built Projects Corridor or Neighborhood Revitalization Plazas, Parks, and Public Places Policies, Programs, and Plans

4 Leadership STAR Communities Program (no deadline) In partnership with the Funders Network for Smart Growth and Livable Communities (TFN), STAR Communities will offer financial assistance to a limited number of communities that demonstrate need and the ability to leverage local philanthropic support for their participation in the Leadership STAR Community Program. Job and Fellowship Openings Chief Executive Officer, LiveWell Colorado, Denver, CO (no closing date) The Prevention Institute maintains a list of current job openings in the public health and built environment fields. Opinions Around the World What is the New American Dream? (Better Cities & Towns, May 24, 2014) News The new American Dream is about place, and that brings people and communities together. The 20th Century American Dream tended to pull cities and towns apart. Lack of Exercise, Not Diet, Linked to Rise in Obesity, Stanford Research Shows (Stanford Med News Center, July 7, 2014) An examination of national health survey results suggests that inactivity, rather than higher calorie intake, could be driving the surge in obesity. A Great Place to Put Community Health Clinics: Fire Stations (CityLab, June 27, 2014) "Essentially the idea is that fire stations, and fire fighters, are a trusted entity in the neighborhood," says Kyle Elliott, partner at WRNS Studio in San Francisco. The architecture firm designed a mock Firehouse Clinic, pro bono, in an effort to generate enthusiasm for the concept. "There's an EMT on site, typically, in a fire house. It makes a good symbiotic relationship to place a clinic adjacent to a fire house." Study Shows Gap Between Public Health and Transportation Policy (University of Colorado Denver, June 2, 2014)

5 A new study from the University of Colorado Denver shows public health issues are often ignored in many transportation projects, especially when major roads are built through lowerincome neighborhoods. Journal Articles Neckerman KM, Lovasi GS, Davies S, Purciel M, Quinn J, Feder E, et al. Disparities in Urban Neighborhood Conditions: Evidence from GIS Measures and Field Observation in New York City. Journal of Public Health Policy 2009;(30):S264 S The study showed that poorer neighborhoods are less conducive to walking than their wealthier counterparts. Results showed that disparities in aesthetics and safety make poorer neighborhoods less attractive environments for walking, even if they have high densities and a good mix of land uses. Researchers conclude that emphasis must be placed on overall neighborhood conditions, such as aesthetics and safety, in order to have an impact on physical activity and health. Specific examples analyzed in this study include planting street trees, increasing frequency of trash pickup, and implementing traffic calming measures. Brown SC, Lombard J, Toro M, Huang S, Perrino T, Perez-Gomez G, et al. Walking and Proximity to the Urban Growth Boundary and Central Business District. Am J Prev Med. Available online 26 June DOI: /j.amepre Research revealed that each one-mile increase in distance from the Urban Development Boundary corresponded to an 11 percent increase in the number of minutes of purposive walking (walking to get from place to place, such as from home to the corner store), whereas each one-mile increase in distance from the urban core corresponded to a five percent decrease in the amount of purposive walking. The farther away from the downtown core people moved, the less they walked. Study participants were 400 newly arrived Cuban immigrants. All were healthy and at least 70 percent reported being physically active in Cuba, either walking or cycling. But after a few weeks in the U.S., those immigrants living closest to the Urban Development Boundary were already less likely to walk than those living closer to downtown Miami. Schuchter J, Bhatia R, Corburn J, Seto E. Health impact assessment in the United States: Has practice followed standards? Environ Impact Asses 2014;47: The study examines reported HIAs in the U.S. against published practice standards. Most HIAs used some screening, scoping and assessment elements from the standards. The extent of these processes and stakeholder participation varied widely. The average HIA considered multiple health determinants and impacts. Evaluation or monitoring plans were generally not included in reports. New and Notable Resources

6 Transportation Research Board of the National Academies. TCRP Report 163: Strategy Guide to Enable and Promote the Use of Fixed-Route Transit by People with Disabilities. Washington, DC: Transportation Research Board; This report provides information, practical steps, and logical strategies for public transit providers seeking to better serve people with disabilities with fixed-route bus and rail transit services. Smart Growth America. Dangerous by Design Washington, DC: Smart Growth America; The report looks at where these fatalities happen and who s most at risk, presenting data from every county, metro area, and state. The report also ranks the major metropolitan areas according to the Pedestrian Danger Index (PDI), which assesses the safety of walking by normalizing fatality rates by how often people walk to work, and by the share of traffic fatalities suffered by people on foot. Integrated Transport and Health Impact Modelling Tool (ITHIM) ITHIM provides integrated health impact assessment of transport through changes in physical activity, road traffic injury risk, and urban air pollution. These health changes are linked to changes in greenhouse gas emissions. ITHIM can either be used as a stand-alone model, or linked to other transport and health models. It can be used for development of scenarios, for estimation of changes in exposures, and for modelling health outcomes. Healthy Food Access Portal (Policylink, The Food Trust, The Reinvestment Fund) On the newly redesigned Web site, you can: Use a new searchable map to find policy efforts and resources in your state Find available funding opportunities in our updated database Learn from your peers via new profiles, webinars, and stories Melillo, Jerry M., Terese (T.C.) Richmond, and Gary W. Yohe, Eds., 2014: Climate Change Impacts in the United States: The Third National Climate Assessment. U.S. Global Change Research Program, 841 pp. doi: /j0z31wj2. The report, produced by an advisory committee chartered under the Federal Advisory Committee Act, for the Subcommittee on Global Change Research, and at the request of the U.S. Government finds that warming and other climate changes are leading to wideranging impacts in every region of the country. The report details existing and projected impacts by region of the country and sector. A chapter on the transportation sector discusses transportation impacts, including decreases in infrastructure reliability and capacity. Farquar, D. An Analysis of State Health Impact Assessment Legislation. Denver (CO): National Conference of State Legislatures;2014.

7 pdf The report examines state legislation and state statutes identifying and addressing health impact assessments. The report found that most states did not seek to implement a comprehensive Health Impact Assessment program, but many aspects of HIAs have been adopted by state governments. The... patient should be made to understand that he or she must take charge of his own life. Don't take your body to the doctor as if he were a repair shop. Quentin Regestein Healthy Community Design News is compiled and managed by Charles L. Green, MA, MFA, CNU-A Health Communication Specialist Healthy Community Design Initiative Division of Emergency and Environmental Health Services National Center for Environmental Health Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 4770 Buford Highway, Mailstop F60 Chamblee, Georgia W: E: CGreen1@cdc.gov To subscribe to the CDC-facilitated Healthy Community Design News Listserv, go to To unsubscribe, send an to LISTSERV@LISTSERV.CDC.GOV with the following command in the body of the SIGNOFF LIVABILITY-GROUP. DISCLAIMER: The contents of this e-newsletter do not necessarily represent the official views of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), or the federal government. CDC, HHS, or the federal government is not responsible for the contents of the information contained in this e-newsletter. Links to nonfederal organizations found in this newsletter are provided solely as a service to our readers. These links do not constitute an endorsement of these organizations or their programs by CDC or the federal government, and none should be inferred. CDC is not responsible for the content of the individual organization Web pages found at these links.

Healthy Community Design News

Healthy Community Design News May 2016 Dear Healthy Community Design News Subscribers, Reducing greenhouse gas emissions, assessing a big rail project, creating a public space for healthy play and learning: