The Mid-South Regional Greenprint HIA: Collaboratively Translating Public Health Evidence into Recommendations for Green Infrastructure Planning in the Memphis, Tenn. Region
Background
In November of 2011, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) awarded Shelby County Government a Sustainable Communities Regional Planning Grant to develop a Mid-South Regional Greenprint & Sustainability Plan that covers the region centered around Memphis, Tennessee.
This plan is designed to enhance regional livability and sustainability by establishing a unified vision for a regional network of green spaces in the Mid-South. As part of this planning process, the Georgia Health Policy Center (GHPC) at Georgia State University (GSU) was hired as a consultant to develop an Health Impact Assessment (HIA) that systematically incorporates an evidence-based health perspective into the regional planning process.print & Sustainability Plan that covers the region centered around Memphis, Tennessee.
As the body of research connecting elements of the built environment to physical activity (and other dimensions of community health and well-being) has grown over the last decade, HIA has emerged as an increasingly popular tool for informing decision-makers (and communities) about these connections in an actionable way. The Greenprint HIA is an example of using this tool to translate data and research into evidence-based recommendations to help decision-makers capitalize on the potential health benefits of a regional sustainability plan.
THE MID-SOUTH REGIONAL GREENPRINT
The Greenprint Plan activities are advanced by the Consortium—a volunteer group of individuals and organizations consisting of representatives from each of the three states (Tennessee, Mississippi, and Arkansas), all counties and incorporated communities within the region, and interested public agencies, planning organizations, nonprofit organizations, businesses, and citizen groups.
The Consortium is organized into eight Working Groups, each with a corresponding “Strategic Direction” on which to focus their activities:
A Regional Interconnected Network of Parks, Greenways, and Open Spaces
Equitable Participation and Community Ownership
Enhanced Access and Transportation Choices
Improved Neighborhoods and Fair Housing Choices
Sustainable Resources and a Quality Environment
A Productive Workforce and Economy
Effective Long-term Regional Planning
Though the Healthy and Safe Communities Working Group is the only one with a stated focus on health, part of the HIA process was emphasizing that health is a concept that permeates the activities of all groups. The HIA acted as a means for pulling together input from all the Working Groups in order to develop strategies to enhance the potential health benefits of the Greenprint Plan.
HIA TOOLKIT
Part of the Greenprint HIA process was the development of an HIA toolkit to be used by consortium members and the public in future examination of potential health impacts from greenway, trail, and green infrastructure projects (Figure 2). The toolkit is based on evidence, reports, impact tables, and baseline conditions developed as part of the HIA report and translated for ease of use by non-health experts. By applying the tool, users will be able to assemble a rapid HIA for their given project relatively quickly and be equipped to determine if a further, more comprehensive HIA may be warranted. In this sense, the tool will serve a dual purpose of allowing for streamlined HIA on a variety of projects, as well as a screening tool to identify projects that would benefit from more in-depth examination from a public health perspective.
LESSONS LEARNED
This work has demonstrated the need for the packaging of health-focused information in a way that is relevant and timely for decision-making processes controlled by non-health factors. Even within a collaborative project that set out to have an interdisciplinary focus from the start, challenges still arise in tailoring information from one sector (e.g. health) to an audience from another (e.g. workforce development).
Based on analyses performed by Alta Planning + Design, the quality of the pedestrian environment is typically poor on major corridors throughout the region, even in areas with the highest demand based on potential destinations.
CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS
HIA is a useful process for accomplishing the integration of health into non-health decision-making processes, but the practice needs to remain flexible and adaptable to the conditions within a given community or for a specific project.
Visit the Mid-South Greenprint project page to access the HIA or explore the HIA Toolkit.
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The Mid-South Regional Greenprint HIA: Collaboratively Translating Public Health Evidence into Recommendations for Green Infrastructure Planning in the Memphis, Tenn. Region.pdf | Download |
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- August 10, 2014 Create Date
- October 14, 2020 Last Updated