…The solutions to improve the health of communities often transcend the borders of cities or towns. What do successful cross-sector approaches to health and equity improvement look like when they span different geographical regions? Our November 20th Network Commons sought to answer these questions with the help of experts from the Bay Area Regional Health Inequities Initiative, the Alliance…

…Communities. The principles, synthesized and collated by Build Health Places Network, advocate for community-led solutions that embed equity, collaborate across sectors, and embrace a holistic view of building health and prosperity which strongly aligns with RWJF’s commitment to building a culture of health and addressing health equity. We also note the benefits or ‘health return on investments’ of approaching community…

…By 2010, that had almost tripled to 3,165. Of those original 1119, only about 100 had their poverty rate dip below the national average in that time. (As moderator of this session, I insisted that we not debate whether and when gentrification was coming to those areas. Here’s why.) Panelist Melvyn Colon, executive director of Southside Institutions Neighborhood Alliance in Hartford, Connecticut, spoke…

…The Urban Land Institute’s Building Healthy Places Toolkit: Strategies for Enhancing Health in the Built Environment outlines evidence-supported opportunities for enhancing health outcomes in real estate developments. Developers, owners, property managers, designers, investors, and others involved in real estate decision making can use the report’s recommendations and strategies to create places that contribute to healthier people and communities, and…

…both issues, I have been surprised and a little disheartened at how little researchers, advocates, policymakers, and funders focused on each area discuss the other, given how much they have in common. Many working to eliminate disparities in communities of color tend to focus on urban issues, and many advocating on behalf of rural communities tend to ignore communities of…

…Build Healthy Places Network, Prosperity Now, and Financial Health Network partnered to explore how to foster alignment across the community development, public health, healthcare, and financial well-being sectors. Fostering Healthy Neighborhoods: Alignment across the Community Development, Financial Well-Being and Health sectors presents examples of existing alignment across sectors, opportunities and challenges for increased collaboration including place-based initiatives, and recommendations to…

…I’ve been fortunate to work with practitioners and leaders who have always known that we have a shared responsibility to eradicate inequality. We fight hard for what we know to be right—equitable communities that have good schools, are free of crime and disinvestment, and that are affordable, accessible, healthy, and happy. On most days, our fight already feels like an…

…Build Healthy Places Network’s Executive Director, Dr. Douglas Jutte, was interviewed by Dr. Gabriel Kaplan, Board President of NACDD (National Association of Chronic Disease Directors). The two discussed the fundamentals of the community development field, the intersection of community development and health, and how the sectors can forge partnerships to increase investment in low-income neighborhoods to tackle health disparities….

…We are deeply saddened and appalled by the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and many others who have lost their lives due to police brutality and other forms of racial injustices that continue to harm black and brown communities throughout the country. We stand as partners with the Black communities and millions of people who face racial discrimination…

…In November 2019, Build Healthy Places Network (the Network), with funding from The Kresge Foundation, launched Community Innovations to deepen outreach to and learning from local community development organizations that serve low-income communities and people of color. Community Innovations has a three-pronged goal: to enhance the Network’s understanding of how best to support local organizations’ cross-sector efforts; to connect…

…struggling with getting past it, I suggest reading: “A Time of Events that Led to the 2020 Fed-Uprising,” “How to Respond to ‘Riots Never Solve Anything,’” and “What We’re Missing When We Condemn ‘Violence’ at Protests.”) But I do want to talk to the affordable housing and community development movement for a moment. When anger boils over at yet another…

…This year, The Network is hard at work rolling out many different resources for community development and health practitioners. These resources will come in different forms, from a “jargon buster” that demystifies common industry terms to a one-stop shop of tools to measure the health-related impacts of community development. But the centerpiece of all these resources is a live…

…Schools represent an ideal focus for primary development of Green Health environmental design research focused on addressing both childhood obesity and sustainability. School facilities are pivotal community resources and a central part of each family and child’s daily life. They are mandated and positioned to help form social norms and default behaviors such as those related to health behaviors….

…In a new commentary published by the Institute of Medicine (IOM), Nancy O. Andrews, President and CEO of the Low Income Investment Fund, explores the cost of transforming the health and well-being of vulnerable children and families at the community level. Using an estimate of $100 billion annually, Ms. Andrews argues that targeted public investments in affordable housing and…

…This infographic by Active Living Research (ALR) highlights a few ways that schools can promote daily physical activity for kids. Comprehensive physical activity programs that offer PE, recess, and safe and active ways to get to schools not only offer children the skills to learn how to be physically active for a lifetime, but also provide physical and mental…

The case studies in this paper explore the relationship between housing and health, explaining how affordable green housing provides health benefits to low-income residents and identifying the benefits of green housing for the environment….

…This article in Foundation Review focuses on the collaborative neighborhood revitalization work taking place in New Jersey funded by the Wells Fargo Regional Foundation, the New Jersey Department of Community Affairs Neighborhood Revitalization Tax Credit Program, and supported by the Housing and Community Development Network. Author: Lois W. Greco, Wells Fargo Regional Foundation…

…This report by NeighborWorks America summarizes the development and piloting of the Success Measures Community Stabilization Evaluation Framework, an outcome-focused evaluation framework and set of data collection instruments that organizations and local governments can use to measure and better understand how their focused stabilization efforts are changing key housing market, community condition and resident confidence factors essential to strong…

If it is so well accepted that the health sector alone cannot improve health, why don’t multisectoral programs and policies happen more often and more successfully? Authors from the Institute of Medicine, the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials, the Vitality Group and Physic Ventures write for the Health Affairs Blog about how we should be rethinking…

…Created by the Opportunity Finance Network, the CDFI Coverage Map is a tool that measures community development finance institution coverage across the United States: where CDFIs are located, where they are providing financing and other services – including investments in health centers and healthy foods – and how this activity changes over time. Using the map, you can view…

…Center for Healthy Housing provides an overview of key financing strategies, examples of home-based lead and asthma programs that are currently being financed through nonprofit hospitals and public or private insurance, and links to resources that are available to help state and local agencies, or other stakeholders, explore options for healthcare financing of healthy homes in their own communities….

…Place Matters is a national initiative designed to build the capacity of leaders and communities around the country to identify and address social, economic, and environmental factors that shape health inequities. Initiated by the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies and now operated by the National Collaborative for Health Equity, Place Matters is based on local teams in…

Watch the video below for a discussion between Matt Trowbridge, Senior Research Fellow at the US Green Building Council, and Kelly Worden, Health Research Associate at USGBC, about the importance of the drive to make healthy places investable. Read a Health Affairs article on creating health metrics for the real estate industry, co-authored by Trowbridge and Network executive…

…Active Living By Design (ALBD) created this resource for leaders of local, healthy community partnerships. Its purpose is to serve as a “mentor in print,” providing practical, field-tested strategic guidance to help leaders be more proactive and effective. They developed accessible lessons, principles and examples from the experiences and wisdom of many healthy community partnerships and their leaders. The…

…Investments in place-based strategies to improve health have grown in the past decade from a small number of early adopters to a wide variety of funding partners. These range from local community and conversion foundations to corporations, corporate foundations, regional healthcare systems, statewide managed care organizations, and national networks such as the Y-USA and the United Way Worldwide. In…

…A new report from the George Washington University funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Kresge Foundation outlines strategy for the Trump administration to expand the role of tax-exempt hospitals in community health improvement Acting under existing legislative authority and without new funding, the new Administration can give hospitals greater flexibility over tax-exempt spending while strengthening their…

…Improving neighborhood environments for children through community development and other interventions may help improve children’s health and reduce inequities in health. A first step is to develop a population-level surveillance system of children’s neighborhood environments. This article, authored by Dolores Acevedo-Garcia and colleagues for the November 2014 issue of Health Affairs, presents the newly developed Child Opportunity Index for…

…This infographic by Active Living Research (ALR) shows how the design of communities can help families be physically active. The presence of parks, trails, playgrounds, sidewalks, and bike lanes encourage walking, biking, and play among both kids and adults. And when communities are safe, well-maintained and have appealing scenery, children and families are more likely to be active.  …

…Collaboration between the health and community development sectors has gained increased attention as a means of accelerating progress to improve community health. This article, authored by Paul Mattessich of Wilder Research and Ela Rausch of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, appeared in the November 2014 issue of Health Affairs. It offers an empirical perspective on the general status…

Workshop Highlights from the August 9th convening in Cleveland, Ohio Co-hosted by the Build Healthy Place Network, County Health Rankings and Roadmaps, and the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland Cleveland-workshop-highlights…