Health and Planning

Plan your community to be a healthy one.

APA Publications

Planning and Public Health: Exploring Opportunities for Collaboration
Marya Morris, Valerie Rogers, Jessica Solomon, and Karen Roof
PAS Memo, July/August 2004

Zoning to Promote Health and Physical Activity
Marya Morris
Zoning Practice, June 2004

APA's PlanningBooks.com
www.PlanningBooks.com

Integrating Planning and Public Health: Tools and Strategies to Create Healthy Places
(PAS Report 539-540, 2006)
Marya Morris, ed.

Planning Active Communities
(PAS Report 543-544, 2007)
Marya Morris, ed.

Planning and Public Health CD-ROM Training Package
American Planning Association and the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, 2005

Planning the Physically Active Community CD-ROM Training Package
American Planning Association and the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, 2003

Web Resources

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

The Obesity and Overweight website (www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/dnpa/obesity/index.htm) includes all statistics, guidelines, research findings, fact sheets, and background information on the health consequences of obesity and overweight in the U.S. It contains information on the causes and health risks associated with obesity and overweight and the chronic diseases associated with those conditions, including cardiovascular disease and diabetes. (It also includes maps depicting the emergence of the epidemic of obesity from 1985 to 2005: www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/dnpa/obesity/trend/maps/).

The Healthy Places webpage (www.cdc.gov/healthyplaces/default.htm) serves as a clearinghouse of all information available from the CDC on the relationship between health, planning, and the built environment.

Measuring the Health Effects of Sprawl: A National Analysis of Physical Activity, Obesity, and Chronic Disease
Reid Ewing and Barbara McCann. Washington, D.C.: Smart Growth America and the Surface Transportation Policy Project. September 2003. www.smartgrowthamerica.com.

Environmental Protection Agency's Smart Growth website
www.epa.gov/smartgrowth
EPA helps communities grow in ways that expand economic opportunity, protect public health and the environment, and create and enhance the places that people love.

Health Development Agency's Health Impact Assessment Gateway (U.K.)
www.hiagateway.org.uk
Health impact assessment is a practical approach that determines how a proposal will affect people's health.

National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities
www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/dh/
Focuses on promoting the health of people who are living with disabilities. Their website describes that work and shares public health information resources.