Healthy Development Measurement Tool

A ”Healthy Development Measurement Tool,” produced by the San Francisco Department of Public Health, helps communities understand how a proposed development would affect health in a neighborhood or larger geographic area. The tool has been used not only in California but also in endeavors such as the South Lincoln Revitalization Masterplan of the Denver Housing Authority and post-hurricane recovery in Galveston, Texas.

Since 2007, the tool has been made available to anyone, through the website www.thehdmt.org.

The tool has three components:
• The Community Health Indicator System, consisting of more than 100 indicators of social, environmental, and economic conditions.
• The Healthy Development checklist, for assessing whether a particular plan or project will help achieve community health objectives.
• A menu of policies and design strategies: a list of potential actions that project sponsors or policy-makers can use to achieve health goals.

Full-day training sessions on how to use the tool are offered by the department twice a year in San Francisco.

See also: Public health: the next driver of planning decisions?