Plan4HealthNJ: Activate the Power of Comprehensive Plans!

Comprehensive plans, zoning ordinances, local policies and capital investment programs have the power to improve health and ultimately save lives. Building on lessons learned from prior Planning4Health grants from the American Planning Association and the CDC, Plan4HealthNJ recognizes the vital partnership between planning and public health.

This presentation highlights Plan4HealthNJ’s work to improve the health of New Jersey’s communities, specifically through land use planning and community design. A series of toolkits consider the holistic and systemic impacts of land use decisions on access to.health care, healthy food systems, environmental health and sustainability, active living, transportation, and housing and community development. Municipalities use them to analyze their communities’ health status, identify health-related needs, understand how land use affects health and may contribute to health disparities, and update their comprehensive plans, ordinances, and policies to improve health outcomes.

Reflect on your own community’s health, discuss challenges to planners and local health officials working together, and explore how land use decisions can potentially improve health conditions for those most at risk.