Healthy Communities: A Priority for APA California
APA California and its members have a strong focus on community health and its relationship to community planning. In the past few years, this focus has expressed itself in various ways. The following are just a few examples illustrating various degrees of collaboration between planners and public health professionals.
Publications
A theme for a recent APA California’s newsletter, CalPlanner, (Vol.16 Issue 04) focused on community health and planning. APA California’s 8 Sections are also keenly interested in health and planning issues. For example, the newsletter for the Chapter’s largest Section (Northern) has published numerous articles on health issues for almost ten years, starting with Fat City? To Health with Planning by Lisa Feldstein, JD (February 2007), and more recently an article titled Healthy Development Measurement Tool by Poonam Narkar, AICP (September 2012), and Planners, Public Health, and Healthy Cities by Donald W. Bradley, Ph.D, AICP (April 2014).
The California Planning Roundtable (CPR), an APA California affiliate comprised of experienced planning professionals that researches and prepares reports on planning issues in California, includes a Healthy Communities Work Group specifically focus on the intersection of planning and health. CPR has published a “Healthy Communities Definition” and recently published a paper entitled The Social Determinants of Health for Planners: Live, Work, Play, Learn! The paper, is intended to advance a deeper understanding of public health approaches and the value they can bring to the planning practice and profession.
Conferences
APA California’s annual conference is a major event that attracts well over 1,000 planners from around the state and across the country. Health has been a major focus at APA California’s conferences for at least the past five years, starting with the 2012 opening keynote address from Dr. Richard Jackson, MD, MPH. The 2012 conference included sessions on “Planning for Healthy Communities in Los Angeles County,” “Healthy People, Healthy Places: Transform Your Economy by Planning for Health,” and “Forging Healthy Community Planning Through Collaboration, Advocacy and Policy-making.”
The 2014 APA California Conference included sessions on “Public Health and Planning: Finding the Right Tools for Collaboration,” “Health Risk Challenges of Siting Housing Near High-Volume Roadways,” and “More than Just Exercise: What Biking Can Do to Build Community and Foster Economic Development.” The 2014 conference also featured an innovative session providing youth perspectives on building healthy communities in the eastern Coachella Valley.
The 2015 conference included five sessions on health and planning, including “New Prescriptions for Health Considerations in Planning and CEQA,” “Health Indicators in Local Decision Making,” and “Latino Urbanism: La Salud y el Entorno Fisico (Health and the Physical Environment.” This conference also included presentation from the California Planning Roundtable on the Social Determinants of Health for Planners.
The 2016 conference continues this well-established tradition with mobile workshops focused on bicycle and pedestrian mobility and sessions like “What Are Healthy Cities and How Can We Plan for Them?” The 2017 conference will various sessions on cross collaboration between planners and public health professionals.
Plan4Health Co-hort 2
APA California is participating in Plan4Health Cohort Two with the innovative “WALKSacramento” project. The project implements Active Design concepts in communities throughout Sacramento County, California’s state capitol. The project employs four key strategies including incorporating Active Design policies into major planning documents, initiating ongoing, cross-sector collaboration between planners and public health professionals, delivering targeted trainings and workshops to support Active Design implementation, and educating residents on the role that community design plays in determining health outcomes. The coalition’s focus to date has been to build cross-sector relationships and to provide comprehensive education for both professionals and community members on the intersections between health and planning. The first major event under the Plan4Health program was a convening of planning directors and public health officers from across the Sacramento region to meet for the first time and identify opportunities for immediate and long-term collaboration. Following the initial convening, the coalition worked with the Sacramento Valley Section of APA California to frame this year’s professional development Speaker Series around health and the build environment. Finally, the coalition is working with area youth from two high schools in disadvantaged communities to identify the ways that the design of their community has both positive and negative impacts on their health. Upcoming work under Plan4Health will include Active Design trainings with elected officials, policy review and development and tactical urbanism installations as a tool to educate communities.
APA's Healthy Communities Collaborative
Several members from our Chapter are members of the HCC LinkedIn Group including staff from the Governor’s Office of Planning and Research, the Strategic Growth Council, city planners from various jurisdictions, consulting firms, non-profits such as ChangeLab Solutions and the Prevention Institute. Although the information is not available, an educated guess would be that if the current 545 members of this group were to be ranked by state affiliation, California would be placed among the top three. Miguel A. Vazquez,AICP, who is also the CPR Healthy Communities work group’s co-chair and Planners4Health task force member is part of the HCIG core group and is actively assisting APA in developing the charter and strategic plan.
Involvement with Health-related Planning Projects in the State or Regions
The Plan4Health Coalition described above would the most prominent organized statewide effort representing members of APA and APHA in California involving the developing of shared capacity among non-traditional partners.
In the past few years, our chapter has been involved in supporting local efforts at the section level. A good example took place in 2012 when the Inland Empire Section organized a workshop entitled “Integrating Health Policies into the General Plan” which garnered the attention of planners and public health professionals from throughout the State.
Our Chapter continues to be involved and supports and nurtures emerging opportunities for collaboration between planning and public health professionals. In 2016, APA California was one of the sponsors for the “Capitalizing on New Opportunities: Planners and Public Health working together to promote healthy communities” convening. This event brought together planning directors and public health officers from across the state to start a dialogue about chronic disease prevention though addressing the built environment.
As mentioned above, APA California members have developed tools to make it easier for planners to get involved in healthy communities. They include a healthy community’s definition and a paper on the social determinants of health for planners. They have also worked on a number of strategies to disseminate these tools including CPR’s website, conferences and collaboration with public health advocates in the preparation of these documents.
APA California members in academia have also made significant strides. A notable program at Sonoma State University for example, has created a curriculum focused on healthy communities and how planning policy can support healthy development. We also estimate that the list of student members enrolling in dual degrees (planning and health) has grown at Cal Berkeley, UCLA and USC because there is an increasing demand at the public and private sectors for planners to be well versed in healthy communities.
Opportunities on the Horizon for APA California
The biggest opportunities we have towards successes depends upon knowing on how many of our members are already advocating for healthy communities. However, because we are a large state, it is unknown at this time. Part of this equation also entails finding out how many healthy communities efforts are taking place statewide and determining the role of planners, planning commissioners, elected officials and the community at large. This grant will help APA California get a grasp on existing and potential capacity.
It is important to mention that Planners4Health can be built upon various statewide efforts supporting the advancement of the healthy communities movement in California. They include:
APA California and its members have a strong focus on community health and its relationship to community planning. In the past few years, this focus has expressed itself in various ways. The following are just a few examples illustrating various degrees of collaboration between planners and public health professionals.
Publications
A theme for a recent APA California’s newsletter, CalPlanner, (Vol.16 Issue 04) focused on community health and planning. APA California’s 8 Sections are also keenly interested in health and planning issues. For example, the newsletter for the Chapter’s largest Section (Northern) has published numerous articles on health issues for almost ten years, starting with Fat City? To Health with Planning by Lisa Feldstein, JD (February 2007), and more recently an article titled Healthy Development Measurement Tool by Poonam Narkar, AICP (September 2012), and Planners, Public Health, and Healthy Cities by Donald W. Bradley, Ph.D, AICP (April 2014).
The California Planning Roundtable (CPR), an APA California affiliate comprised of experienced planning professionals that researches and prepares reports on planning issues in California, includes a Healthy Communities Work Group specifically focus on the intersection of planning and health. CPR has published a “Healthy Communities Definition” and recently published a paper entitled The Social Determinants of Health for Planners: Live, Work, Play, Learn! The paper, is intended to advance a deeper understanding of public health approaches and the value they can bring to the planning practice and profession.
Conferences
APA California’s annual conference is a major event that attracts well over 1,000 planners from around the state and across the country. Health has been a major focus at APA California’s conferences for at least the past five years, starting with the 2012 opening keynote address from Dr. Richard Jackson, MD, MPH. The 2012 conference included sessions on “Planning for Healthy Communities in Los Angeles County,” “Healthy People, Healthy Places: Transform Your Economy by Planning for Health,” and “Forging Healthy Community Planning Through Collaboration, Advocacy and Policy-making.”
The 2014 APA California Conference included sessions on “Public Health and Planning: Finding the Right Tools for Collaboration,” “Health Risk Challenges of Siting Housing Near High-Volume Roadways,” and “More than Just Exercise: What Biking Can Do to Build Community and Foster Economic Development.” The 2014 conference also featured an innovative session providing youth perspectives on building healthy communities in the eastern Coachella Valley.
The 2015 conference included five sessions on health and planning, including “New Prescriptions for Health Considerations in Planning and CEQA,” “Health Indicators in Local Decision Making,” and “Latino Urbanism: La Salud y el Entorno Fisico (Health and the Physical Environment.” This conference also included presentation from the California Planning Roundtable on the Social Determinants of Health for Planners.
The 2016 conference continues this well-established tradition with mobile workshops focused on bicycle and pedestrian mobility and sessions like “What Are Healthy Cities and How Can We Plan for Them?” The 2017 conference will various sessions on cross collaboration between planners and public health professionals.
Plan4Health Co-hort 2
APA California is participating in Plan4Health Cohort Two with the innovative “WALKSacramento” project. The project implements Active Design concepts in communities throughout Sacramento County, California’s state capitol. The project employs four key strategies including incorporating Active Design policies into major planning documents, initiating ongoing, cross-sector collaboration between planners and public health professionals, delivering targeted trainings and workshops to support Active Design implementation, and educating residents on the role that community design plays in determining health outcomes. The coalition’s focus to date has been to build cross-sector relationships and to provide comprehensive education for both professionals and community members on the intersections between health and planning. The first major event under the Plan4Health program was a convening of planning directors and public health officers from across the Sacramento region to meet for the first time and identify opportunities for immediate and long-term collaboration. Following the initial convening, the coalition worked with the Sacramento Valley Section of APA California to frame this year’s professional development Speaker Series around health and the build environment. Finally, the coalition is working with area youth from two high schools in disadvantaged communities to identify the ways that the design of their community has both positive and negative impacts on their health. Upcoming work under Plan4Health will include Active Design trainings with elected officials, policy review and development and tactical urbanism installations as a tool to educate communities.
APA's Healthy Communities Collaborative
Several members from our Chapter are members of the HCC LinkedIn Group including staff from the Governor’s Office of Planning and Research, the Strategic Growth Council, city planners from various jurisdictions, consulting firms, non-profits such as ChangeLab Solutions and the Prevention Institute. Although the information is not available, an educated guess would be that if the current 545 members of this group were to be ranked by state affiliation, California would be placed among the top three. Miguel A. Vazquez,AICP, who is also the CPR Healthy Communities work group’s co-chair and Planners4Health task force member is part of the HCIG core group and is actively assisting APA in developing the charter and strategic plan.
Involvement with Health-related Planning Projects in the State or Regions
The Plan4Health Coalition described above would the most prominent organized statewide effort representing members of APA and APHA in California involving the developing of shared capacity among non-traditional partners.
In the past few years, our chapter has been involved in supporting local efforts at the section level. A good example took place in 2012 when the Inland Empire Section organized a workshop entitled “Integrating Health Policies into the General Plan” which garnered the attention of planners and public health professionals from throughout the State.
Our Chapter continues to be involved and supports and nurtures emerging opportunities for collaboration between planning and public health professionals. In 2016, APA California was one of the sponsors for the “Capitalizing on New Opportunities: Planners and Public Health working together to promote healthy communities” convening. This event brought together planning directors and public health officers from across the state to start a dialogue about chronic disease prevention though addressing the built environment.
As mentioned above, APA California members have developed tools to make it easier for planners to get involved in healthy communities. They include a healthy community’s definition and a paper on the social determinants of health for planners. They have also worked on a number of strategies to disseminate these tools including CPR’s website, conferences and collaboration with public health advocates in the preparation of these documents.
APA California members in academia have also made significant strides. A notable program at Sonoma State University for example, has created a curriculum focused on healthy communities and how planning policy can support healthy development. We also estimate that the list of student members enrolling in dual degrees (planning and health) has grown at Cal Berkeley, UCLA and USC because there is an increasing demand at the public and private sectors for planners to be well versed in healthy communities.
Opportunities on the Horizon for APA California
The biggest opportunities we have towards successes depends upon knowing on how many of our members are already advocating for healthy communities. However, because we are a large state, it is unknown at this time. Part of this equation also entails finding out how many healthy communities efforts are taking place statewide and determining the role of planners, planning commissioners, elected officials and the community at large. This grant will help APA California get a grasp on existing and potential capacity.
It is important to mention that Planners4Health can be built upon various statewide efforts supporting the advancement of the healthy communities movement in California. They include:
- The Health in All Policies program created by the California Department of Public Health in collaboration with the Public Health Institute.
- The current Governor’s Office of Planning and Research General Plan Guidelines update.
- Recently, our Governor signed SB 1000 which will require the incorporation of an Environmental Justice Element into the General Plan. Some the language includes public health goals related to access to healthy foods, opportunities for physical activity and robust community engagement in California’s most disadvantaged communities.
- A special component of this initiative would be to focus on health equity and impacts on disadvantaged communities. To that effect, connecting Planners4Health with The California Endowment’s Building Healthy Communities (BHC) initiative can be a strategy in which we can greatly capitalized from an effort that is breaking down the silos for the past six years in fourteen of the most disadvantaged communities in our State. Through BHC, we can connect with equity and social CBO’s and tribal nations that are working at the grassroots levels on issues related to health equity and environmental justice.