Healthy Neighborhood Equity Fund Heath Impact Assessment Report led by the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, Metropolitan Area Planning Council and the Conservation Law Foundation is now complete - November 25, 2013

Transit-Oriented Development and Health 

A Health Impact Assessment to Inform the Healthy Neighborhoods Equity Fund:

The Conservation Law Foundation (CLF) and the Massachusetts Housing Investment Corporation (MHIC) have proposed the creation of a $30 million private equity fund model that would consider the community, environmental, and health benefits of a proposed project as well as the financial risks and returns. The model, known as the Healthy Neighborhoods Equity Fund (HNEF), would result in investments that have the potential to transform neighborhoods, strengthen population and environmental health, and promote regional equity while providing investors with financial and social returns.  

This Health Impact Assessment (HIA) examines the potential health impacts that could result from investments made by the HNEF. The analysis was conducted by using three Transit Oriented Development (TOD) projects in the City of Boston (Bartlett Place, Madison Tropical Parcel 10, and Parcel 25), and their cumulative impacts as case studies, since they are potentially aligned with the type of projects that the HNEF would support. These case study projects, located in Roxbury or Mission Hill, were also chosen in part because of their representative locations in Boston. These neighborhoods are challenged by health and environmental inequities such as higher unemployment, lower incomes, more historical environmental contamination, and higher crime rates, that contribute to health disparities such as higher incidence of asthma, unintentional injury, and diabetes, among other health outcomes. These are the types of neighborhoods the HNEF aims to target. The results of the HIA are intended to help define the health-related metrics of the HNEF as well as to inform interested developers and potential investors about the anticipated social and economic changes that could result from HNEF (and by association any TOD) supported projects.

Please click here to read the full summary of the report. Click here to read the full report.