Healthy Urbanism

Good news for the residents of Colorado as LiveWell Colorado has just published their Built Environment Policy Blueprint. This document promises to be an excellent resource on built environment policy recommendations to improve public health. In particular, the report looks at land use, active transportation and development. It’s focused on Colorado, but will certainly be useful to anyone else working in this arena. Also available from them is the Food Policy Blueprint, an equally impressive document that addresses policy solutions to improve healthy eating.

As I discovered this last week, LiveWell Colorado is just one of many organizations in Colorado that are working towards creating and improving healthy lifestyles. My organization, Tri-County Health Department, is working on a Communities Putting Prevention to Work grant from the CDC to address obesity in a variety of ways. Several government agencies at both the state and municipal level are working on an array of projects incorporating the built environment, physical activity and healthy eating. These include the City of Denver, Colorado’s Dept. of Transportation, Dept. of Local Affairs, Dept. of Public Health & Environment, a variety of LiveWell communities across the state and many more I’m sure I’m forgetting. There are also a variety of non-profits, such as Partnerships for Healthy Communities, the Regional Institute for Health & Environmental Leadership, Denver Urban Gardens and many, many more.

There are two elements of all this that I find particularly exciting. One is the community of professionals that has sprung up to work closely with each other across issues and institutions. There are a lot of engaged, passionate, and intelligent people grappling with these topics from a variety of backgrounds and organizations that are helping each other out. Second is the emphasis of many of these folks on the social justice component of this work and it’s importance to vulnerable communities and populations. Plenty of research has shown that minorities and lower income populations are disproportionately affected by health disparities and it is vital that we work to correct this imbalance. It is incredibly encouraging to see so many things happening right now, and I’m thankful that I’ll get an opportunity to contribute.