Planning and Community Health Research Center

Research

Working with a global network of research fellows and partner institutions, APA conducts collaborative, multidisciplinary research aimed at addressing today's pressing health issues through city and regional planning.

Current Projects

Arts, Culture & Creativity

The Planning and Community Health Research Center is developing a series of briefing papers to illustrate how planners use arts and culture strategies to achieve economic, social, environmental, and community goals.

Bridging the Gap

The Planning and Community Health Research Center is working with a team of researchers to develop research criteria and indicators to analyze planning policy and its impact on the diet and physical activity habits of youth.

Creating Community-Based Brownfields Redevelopment Strategies

APA is the recipient of a Brownfields Training, Research and Technical Assistance Grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Creating Community-Based Brownfields Redevelopment Strategies is a three-year initiative with the goal of helping community groups in low-income communities develop a new set of "eyes" to see brownfields sites as opportunities.

Family Friendly Communities

The Planning and Community Health Research Center is working with the Linking Economic Development and Child Care Project to engage planners in thinking critically about what makes a family friendly community, what's currently being done, and what opportunities are there to create more friendly communities.

Past Projects

Complete Streets

APA partnered with the National Complete Streets Coalition to prepare a best practices manual on complete streets which was published as a PAS Report in early 2010.

Planning and Designing the Physically Active Community

In the last decade, the paradigm of smart growth has prompted many communities to improve the physical design of downtowns and neighborhoods.

Healthy Communities through Collaboration

In 2003, a partnership between APA and the National Association of County and City Health Officials began to restore the bridges among land-use planning, community design, and public health practice.