Social Determinants of Health and Housing and Community Development

A Simplified Framework for Incorporating Health into Community Development Initiatives
This article lays out a simple framework to identify and measure potential health effects, actions to create positive health impacts, and strategies to mitigate potential negative impacts. The framework is drawn from an analysis of health impact assessments and includes four elements: identifying the health status of the target population, considering neighborhood-level health influences, building design features important to health, and incorporating community engagement and capacity-building activities into the initiative. [pdf; University of Wisconsin, 2015]

Building Healthy Places Initiative
This initiative from the Urban Land Institute (ULI) helps to link human health and development. The site provides evidence-supported research and publications to help enhance health outcomes in real estate developments. The site features reports such as America in 2015, a survey of view about housing, transportation, and community; and resources such as the Building Healthy Places Toolkit to help incorporate health into the built environment, as well as a host of other resources and reports to help developers build with health in mind. [url; ULI]

Center on Society and Health (CSH), Virginia Commonwealth University
This academic research center studies the health implications of social factors – such as education, income, housing, and environmental conditions – on neighborhoods and communities. CHS’ work looks at conditions affecting Americans nationwide with a focus on connections between society and health. A few of CHS’ current projects include a National Health Equity Index, Bringing Best Practices to Housing Redevelopment, and Mapping Life Expectancy. [url; CSH, VCU]