Incorporating consideration of health impacts into land use development approval processes: Development of a Health Background Study Framework.

OBJECTIVES: This project involved development of a Health Background Study (HBS) Framework to support consideration of health impacts within municipalities' approval process for land use development. PARTICIPANTS: Peel Public Health and Toronto Public Health led the project with the participation of planners, urban designers, engineers, public health staff and development industry representatives.
SETTING: Historical growth in the Region of Peel and suburban Toronto has resulted in extensive low-density development, creating car-dependent communities with disconnected streets and segregated land uses. INTERVENTION: The inclusion of an HBS in developers' applications to municipalities is one approach by which health-related expectations for the built environment can be established within the approval process. Development of the HBS Framework used the six core elements of the built environment with the strongest evidence for impact on health and was informed by analysis of the provincial and local policy contexts, practices of other municipalities and stakeholder interviews. The Framework's contents were refined according to feedback from multidisciplinary stakeholder workshops. OUTCOMES: The HBS Framework identifies minimum standards for built environment core elements that developers need to address in their applications. The Framework was created to be simple and instructive with applicability to a range of development locations and scales, and to various stages of the development approval process. Peel Public Health is leading several initiatives to support the use of the HBS as a part of the development application process.
CONCLUSION: The HBS Framework is a tool that public health and planning can use to support the consideration of health impacts within municipalities' land use development processes.