What We Do
There are four primary avenues for our work: health information, health impact assessment tools, events, and direct technical assistance.
Resource Library: Health and Planning
The resource library section about health and planning includes a variety of resources sorted by topic and type. These include work on the Design for Health web site and links to work done on health topics such as the food environment, physical activity, environmental health, and social issues as well as those resources traditionally linked the built environment such as land use, transportation, and urban design. Highlights include.
- Accessible research summaries--the Key Questions series,
- Information on tools for solving practical planning issues—the Planning Information Sheet series,
- A series of planning-oriented health impact assessment tools in a variety of forms including a brief checklist, a participatory workshop, and a more detailed analytical workbook,
- An innovative group of comprehensive plan checklists that recommend ways to integrate health into comprehensive plan elements,
- Online slide shows providing images for use in PowerPoints and reports,
- Case studies of planning documents and processes incorporating health.
While there is burgeoning interest in health impact assessment tools, few municipalities in the United States have used health impact assessment to examine community design. Building on experience in Europe, Australia, and Canada, we have developed a prototype health impact assessment tools.
The Design for Health project provides two sorts of events:
- Health impact assessment training workshops help communities learn how to use health impact assessment tools.
- Phase I involved a series of workshops held in 2006 and 2007 that featured national and international experts. These events were attended by hundreds of participants on topics ranging from safety to transportation.These workshops offered a research-based and application-oriented discussion of health and urban form topics.
From 2006 to 2008, ninteen municipalities funded by Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota will receiveed highly targeted technical assistance tailored to the specific issues in each community.
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