Planning for Public Health

Local governments prepare a variety of plans to assess and address challenges in areas ranging from housing and economic development to land use and transportation. The integration of health issues into all dimensions of plan making at the local and regional levels is an important societal goal. 

While not all local governments across the U.S. are required to develop a comprehensive plan, many required under state statute are beginning to see the connections between comprehensive planning and public health. Mandatory elements such as land use, open space, and transportation, as well as urban design requirements, can impact food access, physical activity, housing choice and affordability, school locations, social equity, transportation choices, clean water and air, and more.

Several strategies have been used by local governments across the country to plan for health. Considering the impact of plans on the design of a community, the Planning and Community Health Research Center is conducting a multi-year research study to:

• Identify and determine to what extent municipalities and counties are addressing and integrating public health goals, objectives, and policies in their comprehensive planning efforts;
• Examine and evaluate the clarity, quality and comprehensiveness of public health goals and policies in a sample of the identified plans;
• Conduct case studies to analyze public health goal and policy development, adoption and implementation process;

Results from this project will be synthesized into a policy report and disseminated to a diverse audience — academics, practitioners, and policy makers in the planning and public health fields.

Survey Report

As part of the first phase of this project, APA developed a national, web-based survey to:

• Identify draft and adopted comprehensive and sustainability plans that explicitly include public health related goals, objectives, and policies;
• Inventory the public health topics included in the plans;
• Identify the opportunities and barriers faced by each community in the development and adoption of each of these goals, objectives or policies; and,
• Assess the current state of planning for public health in local governments across the country.

Results of the survey include a list of municipalities and counties from across the country that explicitly address public health in their comprehensive or sustainability plan.

Download the survey results report (pdf)