Dear Friends and Colleagues,

HIA UPDATES

Long Beach (CA) Downtown Community Plan

In early April, we completed a rapid HIA in three months on the Long Beach (CA) Downtown Community Plan. In collaboration with East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice and Californians for Justice, and with funding from The California Endowment, we examined how the proposed Downtown Plan, as well as a community benefits agreement proposed by the community, would impact measures of housing and employment in Long Beach, and how these impacts could lead to changes in health for residents of the Downtown area. The proposed Downtown Plan includes approximately 5,000 new residential units and close to 2 million square feet of new office, civic, cultural, retail and restaurant space; however the Plan includes no mention of affordable housing or ways to ensure that new employment opportunities are available to local Long Beach residents, many of whom are low-income and/or people of color. The rapid HIA report was submitted as a comment on the Draft Environmental Impact Report, and used by local organizations in a media campaign.

Capacity Building

Many of the groups we trained last year and to whom we have been providing technical assistance have been completing their first HIAs and are now using the results to effect change. Highlights of recent progress by our Place Matters partners, funded through a grant from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, are below:

Alameda County, CA

The Alameda County Place Matters team conducted an HIA of the school funding policy in Oakland. The HIA considered ways of addressing equity in school funding to improve academic performance through teaching quality, family and student engagement, access to health and support services at schools, and safer school environments. Through the process of this HIA, the Place Matters team has been invited to participate in an Oakland Unified School District task force considering improvements in the school funding formula. While the full HIA report and summary will be released later this year, preliminary presentations about the HIA findings.

Bernalillo County, NM

The Bernalillo County Place Matters team conducted a rapid HIA on a proposal to locate a new dirty materials recovery facility (dirty MRF) in the community of Mountain View, just outside of Albuquerque. A dirty MRF accepts waste from different sources and sorts through it to collect recyclables, which are then sold. In this case, the facility would need to be granted a special use permit in order to locate at the Mountain View site, and is required to demonstrate that the facility will not adversely impact the community’s health, safety, and welfare. In an effort to examine the impact of the proposed facility on their communities’ health and well-being, which was not being assessed by others, residents of Mountain View and the neighboring community of San Jose approached the Bernalillo County Place Matters team for assistance with conducting this HIA. The final HIA report was submitted to the Planning Commission. After discussion of the HIA at a hearing, the Planning Commission rejected the application for the facility, but the project sponsor is appealing that decision. The Place Matters Team is also conducting a second analysis, focused on walkability and safety, of a land use plan being developed for the International District in Albuquerque.

New Orleans, LA

Following the HIA training HIP conducted with the New Orleans Place Matters team and several public health and planning stakeholders, a collaboration was formed between the Place Matters team and the city planning staff who are currently drafting a new zoning ordinance for the city. The Place Matters team is currently working with the planners to develop a policy to limit the availability of fast food near schools. Once this policy is integrated into the draft zoning ordinance, the team will embark on an HIA analyzing various policies within the proposed zoning ordinance that impact obesity outcomes.

Wayne County, MI

The Wayne County Place Matters team completed a Health Impact Assessment of national and statewide policy proposals for gender pay equity. The team is interested in working on upstream issues that impact maternal and child health, such as education, income and employment, and social perception, as a path to reducing infant mortality. They chose to look at the health impacts of pay inequity, specifically assessing changes in general health outcomes related to stress, mental health, and access to health insurance. The Place Matters team is currently reporting the results of the HIA nationally, with the American Association of University Women, and statewide. The team will continue to work to educate the public and decision-makers about the health impacts of pay inequity. The HIA report is now available.

 

BEYOND HIA: WEAVING HEALTH INTO PLANNING AND POLICY

We have been receiving an increasing number of requests to use the tools and processes from Health Impact Assessment upstream of official decision making processes. Whether it is called Health in All Policies or just good inter-agency collaboration, public health and equity goals, literature, data, metrics, methods and processes can be integrated during plan and policy development, before there is an actual proposed decision on the table. Impacting policies and plans as they are being developed can be easier than doing so through an HIA on a fully formed proposal.  However, conducting an HIA on a proposed decision can help to build the relationships and understanding that make such collaboration possible.  Wherever they come from, these opportunities to increase the use of health in decision making should be taken advantage of.

An example of a project where HIP is collaborating to weave health into front end planning is our work on Sustainable Communities planning efforts that are now required in California. With funding from the Resources Legacy Fund, Human Impact Partners is working in partnership with a statewide collection of public health experts, departments, and advocates as well as planning agencies and firms to have health and equity metrics incorporated into Regional Transportation Plan (RTP) processes conducted by Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPOs) in California. Senate Bill 375 (2008) requires that MPOs prepare a Sustainable Communities Strategy as a new element of their RTPs. MPOs typically select a set of metrics to use as criteria for judging potential scenarios under consideration. It is our hope that using health- and equity-based metrics to judge future scenarios will lead to the development and selection of transportation plans with better health and equity outcomes. With our partners, we are identifying priority metrics that monitor health determinants such as vehicle miles traveled, emissions, access to goods and services, as well as health outcomes such as injuries from vehicular, pedestrian, and bicycle collisions. Once such health and equity metrics are prioritized by our collaboration, HIP will be engaging with partners to disseminate to MPOs the indicators, methods for measuring them, and health evidence that supports them. We are close to having consensus on a set of indicators. We have also provided a health- and equity-based critique of metrics proposed by one large MPO, the Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG).

A STRONG HIA COMMUNITY

It is clear that the HIA field and its successes are growing. We strongly believe these victories will lead to reduced inequities and improved health for all. It is also clear that along with those successes, the hurdles and barriers to conducting HIAs are also growing. So, we want to conclude by recognizing that this work is hard – intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually. We are happy to say that the community we see forming around HIA is incredibly strong, committed, and supportive. We’re clearly in this together, so thank you for that and for your support!

Peace,

Casey, Celia, Holly, Jen, Jonathan, Kim, Lili, Maren, Marnie, Saneta, and Trent