Jurisdiction Addressing Public Health and Food Systems Issues through Planning

The epidemic of obesity, diabetes and the lack of access to healthy food are significant issues across the nation, particularly in low income communities. In an effort to see where, how and what local planning departments are doing to recognize and develop polices to combat such issues, the America Planning Association, with funding from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, conducted a national survey of local planning officials. The study identified, evaluated and analyzed the goals, objectives and policies related to public health and food systems in local comprehensive and sustainability plans. The two maps illustrate, on a national level, the proactive jurisdictions that have adopted comprehensive and sustainability plans that explicitly reference either public health or food systems. The maps allow other planners to spatially see where local efforts are being made on health and food issues, and provide planners who are looking to adopt such policies an opportunity to connect with other planners. For more information, please visit http://www.planning.org/nationalcenters/health/index.htm.

Mapmaker: Gregory Vernon & Kimberley Hodgson

Gregory Vernon
Client Operations & Systems Specialist
USEngineering Solutions
gregpvernon@gmail.com

Kimberley Hodgson
Research Manager, Active Transportation Collaboratory
University of British Columbia
kimberley.hodgson@ubc.ca

Data Sources: 2010 US Census, Data.gov, American Planning Association Survey

Date of Map: March 2011