APA Awards 2009: Design for Health - Minneapolis, MN

National Planning Excellence Award for Best Practices

Design for Health
Minnesota

The Design for Health program integrates human health issues into planning and environmental design using innovative, practice-oriented tools. Design for Health has had two phases. The first phase, funded by Blue Cross Blue Shield of Minnesota, emphasized technical assistance to the 19 partner communities already funded by BCBS to incorporate active living and healthy-environment principles into urban plans. The second phase focuses on education and tool development.

A number of tools including the website, www.designforhealth.net, technical assistance tools, research summaries, and health impact assessment tools are oriented to practitioners for every-day use. The combination of accessible online educational resources and one-on-one technical assistance — including having the Design for Health team review comprehensive plans — has provided multiple paths for learning about health issues.

Design for Health leading the movement to incorporate health into planning and environmental design with a flexible yet targeted suite of tools and methods for assistance.

From a comprehensive planning and implementation perspective, the partners created three active living plan elements, two public and community health elements, five bicycle and/or pedestrian mobility plans, two multi-modal plans, one zoning ordinance and land development manual, and seven comprehensive plans incorporating health throughout the entire document.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Minneapolis
• Minnesota
• urban planning
• American Planning Association
• APA Awards
• biking
• transportation
• zoning ordinance
• land development
• health
• design
• environmental design
• planners