Monitoring healthy growth: Community design and perception baseline indicators

This webinar will provide an overview of The Healthy Community Design (HCD) Baseline Project developed by Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph Public Health and published in the Canadian Journal of Public Health.

A strong relationship exists between health and community design. However, in many communities, there is a gap in available baseline data that supports measuring and monitoring healthy community design (HCD). To address this gap, the HCD Baseline Project aimed to collect and use local data to develop indicators that will facilitate applying a health and wellbeing lens to land use planning and growth decisions. The HCD Baseline Project established baseline indicators for three communities, including indicator data that measures physical community design features as well as survey data on self-reported behaviours and perceptions. Physical community design indicator data were mapped spatially for each community, including data related to neighbourhood design, transportation networks, natural environments, and food systems. Additionally, survey data collected from a Neighbourhood Design Survey provided information on residents’ perceptions of HCD as well as data on reported behaviour related to how residents travelled within their neighbourhood. The creation of a baseline will support ongoing monitoring to track progress of HCD priorities as communities grow. The combination of physical community design and survey data identified areas of strength and opportunity for each community. In collaboration with municipal partners, tailored recommendations were developed for each community.

Amanda Scales MHS, BSc, BEd – Amanda Scales is a Health Promotion Specialist with Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph Public Health. Amanda has an academic background in health and education as well as over nine years of Public Health experience. As a Health Promoter specializing across a range of topic areas including built environment, school health, oral health, tobacco policy and prevention, Amanda has demonstrated her passion for promoting healthy living, mobilizing communities, and supporting health equity among the population.

Bo Cheyne, BSc, MASc - Bo Cheyne is an Environmental Health Specialist with Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph Public Health. Bo has over a decade of experience in Public Health working in diverse areas ranging from supporting risk assessment and communication pertaining to environmental exposures to examining the relationships between climate change, the built environment and health with the aim of enabling the development of evidence-informed, healthy public policy and practice. This work has led to a passion for building healthy, vibrant and resilient communities.