Just two years after launching, the City Health Dashboard is adding new features to dig deeper into neighborhood- and city-specific data to guide local solutions to local health issues. Most data on urban areas focuses on the county, state, or national levels. The City Health Dashboard , however, pulls together local data from multiple sources to provide cities with a one-stop, regularly refreshed data center to help identify local gaps in opportunity and support decision-making to address factors that shape health. Now the Dashboard is adding new features and showcasing them at a webinar on June 5.
What’s New?
In June, the City Health Dashboard is giving cities additional data and new innovative features. The new data allow local leaders to dig deeper into neighborhood- ...
Historically, white people easily got mortgages to live in America's nicest areas, while aspiring racial/ethnic home buyers from the inner-city were refused loans from banks and federal programs. That is what is called "redlining." This racially discriminatory mortgage lending practice, which gripped the nation in the 1930s before its ban in the 1960s, created a racial wealth gap and neighborhoods that lacked health-promoting assets, like healthcare, jobs, and transportation options. Even today, three of four neighborhoods “redlined” on government maps 80 years ago continuing to struggle economically, according to a new study, Washington Post reports. “It’s as if some of these places have been trapped in the past, locking neighborhoods into concentrated poverty,” ...
In 2017, Takoma Park adopted a racial equity initiative to begin addressing institutionalized racism. Latinos and people of color face numerous obstacles to opportunity across the lifespan due to racial bias in policies, institutions, and systems, which further contribute to health inequity. Housing instability, for example is linked to poor health outcomes. More Latinos (56.9%) are burdened by housing costs than Whites (46.8%), meaning they have little money left over for health- and wealth-promoting assets, accord to a Salud America! research review. Leaders in Takoma Park, Maryland (14% Latino) wanted to determine whether policies—even those that are seemingly neutral—were contributing to racial inequities. Like fiscal and environmental impact statements, the city began ...
This is part of the Salud America! The State of Latinos and Housing, Transportation, and Green Space: A Research Review » Summary
Neighborhood development initiatives in Latino communities that rely upon “bottom-up” activism, a wide public-private partnership network, and “cultural brokers” have been effective at driving and maintaining long-term community change, especially in the context of environmental justice in Latino communities.
Green Space Access Is an Environmental Justice Issue
Over the past two decades, uneven access to green space has become an important environmental justice issue as awareness of its contribution to public health has become more widely recognized [33, 52]. In general, racial/ethnic minorities and low-income people have less access to ...
This is part of the Salud America! The State of Latinos and Housing, Transportation, and Green Space: A Research Review » Summary
Green space initiatives that take community concerns, needs, and desires into consideration may be most effective at improving Latino physical and mental well-being. Green spaces support public health in many ways—they filter air, remove pollution, attenuate noise, cool temperatures, replenish ground water, mitigate stormwater, and can provide food [53, 54]. Beyond these benefits, however, are the physical, mental, and emotional benefits of green space, as discussed below.
Green Spaces Benefit Latino Physical Health
Policies and programs that specifically work to improve these conditions in Latino communities will go a long way to increasing the ...
This is part of the Salud America! The State of Latinos and Housing, Transportation, and Green Space: A Research Review » Summary
Income-based fare reductions, improved scheduling, and transit routing improvements to link places of residence with places of employment are emerging ways to improve quality of life for Latinos living in the U.S. To improve transit connectivity and safe transportation options in Latino communities, smart advocacy decisions will have to be made. Transit routing improvements will have to address coverage gaps in the suburbs, disconnects between population centers and job nodes, and alignment of routes between riders and destinations [42]. Transit scheduling improvements must be made to meet the working hour needs and reliability required for regular ...
This is part of the Salud America! The State of Latinos and Housing, Transportation, and Green Space: A Research Review » Summary
To improve access to affordable housing near public transport, Latinos would benefit from transport-oriented development projects in their neighborhoods that increase the stock of affordable housing centered around the transport hub. These projects should emphasize strong preemptive community involvement to limit displacement and gentrification that has frequently plagued these projects, and to maintain cultural authenticity in Latino neighborhoods that have undergone revitalization.
What Is Transit-Oriented Development?
Transit-oriented development is a model for neighborhood revitalization that can be defined as ‘walkable, dense, compact, mixed-use ...
This is part of the Salud America! The State of Latinos and Housing, Transportation, and Green Space: A Research Review » Summary
Latino communities lack green spaces that are safe, accessible, functional, and culturally relevant.
What Are Green Spaces?
Within urban, suburban, and rural communities, green space can be natural or maintained outdoor public space, such as parks, playgrounds, sporting fields, school yards, day care and early care yards, greenways/trails, tree-lined sidewalks, community gardens, nature conservation areas, forests, as well as less conventional urban “green alleyways,” “pocket parks,” and green walls or roofs [52].
Green Space Inequities Exist
Unfortunately, access to and quality of green space is not equitably distributed. Compared with ...
This is part of the Salud America! The State of Latinos and Housing, Transportation, and Green Space: A Research Review » Summary
U.S. Latinos report specific transportation challenges that arise due to the discrepancy between where Latinos live versus where they work. These challenges include transit fare affordability, reliability, and coverage.
Latinos Use Public Transit Frequently
According to the Pew Research Center, Americans who are lower-income, non-White, immigrants, or under 50 are most likely to use public transportation on a regular basis [39]. Among urban residents, 27% of Latinos use public transit daily or weekly, compared to 14% of non-Latino Whites, and foreign-born urban residents are 20% more likely to regularly use public transportation than native-born urban ...
