The Relationship Between Community Development and Health
Health impact assessment can be a useful tool to address a range of health-related areas in the community development sector, including economic development, infrastructure, community organizing, and access to resources. This figure illustrates the connections among these factors and health.
Conducting health impact assessments (HIAs) can help build collaboration across different organizations within the same community in order to improve public health. For example, community developers are responsible for improving the physical infrastructure of neighborhoods and administering programs and services for residents, while public health practitioners research, identify, and advocate for strategies to address health disparities and improve community health broadly. HIAs can bring these two disciplines together and provide developers with a process to engage the local community and evidence to ensure that decisions will benefit public health.
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