A new rapid Health Impact Assessment (HIA) explores the relationship between transit-oriented development and health. The Metropolitan Area Planning Council in partnership with Conservation Law Foundation came together to update a 2013 HIA that defined pathways for how transit-oriented development can impact health and contribute to social, environmental, and economic changes.
In addition to updating the research on the pathways to health identified in the first HIA (access to healthy affordable foods; displacement and gentrification; economic opportunity; green space; social cohesion; and residential efficiency), this HIA identified three new pathways based on the first round of the Healthy Neighborhoods Equity Fund and emerging findings from the Healthy Neighborhoods Study:
- Ownership of Change: Residents’ power in relation to neighborhood development has a positive correlation with health and happiness among participants.
- Climate Change: Climate health risk will play out universally. However, the impacts will not be distributed equally. Developments can address various potential hazards (e.g., flooding, heat) and protect populations at heightened risk of negative health effects.
- Moving to Opportunity: Adults who moved from higher-poverty neighborhoods to lower-poverty neighborhoods reported improved mental health and smaller improvements on physical health and chronic diseases.