Tag Archive for Health

Feb 26 – The Mellon Humanities, Urbanism and Design (H+U+D) Initiative Annual Public Lecture: Sensing the City

Monday, Feb 26, 5:30pm
B26 Stiteler Hall
University of Pennsylvania

David Barnes, History and Sociology of Science, will explore the role of smell as urban health sentinel and as investigatory tool in diagnosing healthy and unhealthy urban neighborhoods, using examples from Philadelphia and Paris between 1790 and 1900. Using the Milton-Parc neighborhood of Montreal as her case study, Francesca Russello Ammon, City and Regional Planning and Historic Preservation, will discuss the use of photographs to shape new ways of seeing in a battle between demolition and rehabilitation. Naomi Waltham-Smith, Music, will foreground the role played by listening in urban social movements and local alliance-building around economic, housing, and environmental justice through interventions of sound-art collective Ultra-red in Los Angeles and London over the last 20 years.

Domenic Vitiello, City and Regional Planning and Urban Studies, will moderate.

 

April 17: Chester County Planners’ Forum for Spring 2018

Professional planners from Chester County are invited to attend the spring 2018 Chester County Planners’ Forum from 8 a.m.-10 a.m. April 17 at the Oakbourne Mansion, a beautiful historic property in Westtown (1014 S. Concord Road, West Chester, Pa., 19382).

The event will include the following presentations:

  • Greening Coatesville:  Lively Parks for Healthy People, presented by Ann Hutchinson of Natural Lands
  • Understanding Transportation Impact Fees, presented by Joe Platt, P.E. of Traffic Planning and Design, Inc.
  • Historic Preservation: Planning Initiatives and Economic Value, presented by Ray Ott and Jane Dorchester

To register for the forum, visit: https://2018-spring-planners-forum.eventbrite.com. Email any questions you may have to ccplanning@chesco.org.

Jan 24: Active Design/Healthy Communities: State of the City

The first lecture in the Active Design/Healthy Communities series explores how public health agencies can join forces with design to address inequalities in the city and promote physical, mental, emotional, and civic well-being. The case study is the new South Philadelphia Health, Literacy, and Recreation Center on Broad Street. tate of the City is scheduled for Jan 24 from 8am-10am in the AIA Center. CM credits for planners are pending.

Registration: https://www.aiaphiladelphia.org/events/active-designhealthy-communities-state-city

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APA-DE Regional Conference Call for Presentations

The Delaware Chapter of the American Planning Association is now accepting proposals for presentations at their 2018 Regional Conference to be held in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. The conference is scheduled for Tuesday and Wednesday October 23-24, 2018. The theme is Planning 360: Economy, Environment and Health.   Eligible submissions can cover a broad range of topics related to technological advances and their impacts on infrastructure planning, design, operations, and management related to the theme. Subjects may include those related to Economic Development, Environmental Quality, Public Health, or Planning-related Communications.  Research-based sessions highlighting promising emerging and innovative research ideas, best practices, or case studies are encouraged.

The deadline for submissions is January 15, 2018. Complete information on presentation content, proposal preparation and submission is available on the Chapter website http://delawareapa.org

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2018 Farm Bill: What Does It Mean for Planners and Public Health Professionals?

What is the Farm Bill?

The farm bill is a comprehensive, multi-year federal law that authorizes most federal policies governing food and agriculture.  The most recent farm bill—The Agricultural Act of 2014 (P.L. 113-79), commonly referred to as the 2014 Farm Bill—has 12 titles that encompass a range of issues and programs including farm commodities and income supports, nutrition programs like the Supplementation Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), farmland and environmental conservation, crop insurance, and rural development.  Nutrition programs constitute the majority of the farm bill, accounting for 80 percent of the funds historically and projected to be spent on farm bill programs.  Farm commodity supports, crop insurance, and conservation programs comprise 8 percent, 7 percent, and 5 percent, respectively.[1]

The 2014 Farm Bill, which was signed into law in February 2014, is set to expire on September 30, 2018.  Since Congress debates, updates, and reauthorizes the farm bill approximately every five years, discussions about the next farm bill are already happening, both in Congress and across the country.

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Oct. 12: FitCityPHL

You’re invited to FitCityPHL 3!

FitCityPHL is an annual full-day symposium that explores design strategies in workplaces, neighborhoods, and cities that improve health. It brings together individuals representing the sectors of public health, architecture, planning, design, landscape architecture, development,  research and evaluation, academia, philanthropy, and government to learn about how the built environment can have a positive impact on the negative health trends currently facing communities – particularly obesity and other chronic conditions.

At this year’s symposium, attendees will interact with public sector leaders in a town hall format, learn about community engagement and workplace active design strategies, and participate in several walking tours highlighting local examples of active design.
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Event Recap: Social Justice and Public Health

On Wednesday, August 30th, 2017, APAPASE hosted the event Principles to Which We Aspire: Social Justice and Public Health. The morning event took place in the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission’s main conference room. The session spoke to the link between social justice and public health through healthy community design, food access, and financial stability, while relating all topics to the AICP code of ethics. The speakers included Amanda Wagner, MCP, MGA, of Get Healthy Philly; Caroline Harries, AICP, Associate Director, The Food Trust; and Lisa Servon, Professor and Department Chair, City Planning, University of Pennsylvania.

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Dedicated to Health Care for Philadelphia’s LBGT Community: The Mazzoni Center

The Mazzoni Center, in the heart of Philadelphia, is the only single health care provider in the region that specifically targets the unique health care needs of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender communities. With only minor service interruptions to its patients and clients, and in spite of going through significant organizational turmoil, Mazzoni moved to occupy a brand new facility on May 30, 2017 on Bainbridge Street, just east of Broad Street.

On June 20th, APA’s LGBTQ and Planning Division’s Co Vice-Chair, Communications, Justin Dula, AICP, organized a group of approximately 25 attendees for a 2-hour evening tour of the new facility with Philadelphia’s Queer Urbanist Exchange. The tour was conducted by Mazzoni’s Director of Development, Mytili Jagannathan, to showcase the four floors of new space that will be used for one of the newest and most comprehensive LGBT service facilities in the nation.

Founded in 1979 as an all-volunteer clinic to serve the needs of sexual minorities in Philadelphia around the time when the first cases of HIV/AIDS began to appear in the early 1980s, the organization quickly responded, becoming the oldest AIDS service organization in Pennsylvania, and the fourth-oldest in the nation. As Mazzoni grew and evolved to meet the needs of the community, it combined HIV/AIDS-related services with a broad array of interconnected health care and supportive services: outreach, prevention, education, direct medical and care services, psychosocial services, legal services, and support groups. Now, over 35,000 individuals benefit annually from the services of the Center and demands have continued to grow.

Mazzoni Center is now going through a time of turmoil that is threatening the continued existence of the organization, has continued to provide services to clients and move to the new location. There were substantial management and board changes after allegations surfaced of illegal and improper conduct among management and doctors after the groundbreaking of the new building. Now, Mazzoni is working to enter into an era of transparency and accountability and regain the trust of the LGBT community, particularly patients and staff of color, transgender and gender non-conforming. The construction of a new facility amidst this organizational crisis may be one of the few bright spots for the Mazzoni Center in the past months and can hopefully be a catalyst for reconnection with the community.

Easily accessible to public transit, the existing building that Mazzoni renovated was formerly home to a Department of Public Welfare office that had been unoccupied for several years. The total gut renovation substantially expanded the space available to Mazzoni’s existing spectrum of services, which now includes a primary care medical practice, mental health counseling program, case management, housing-subsidy program, and food bank, in addition to all of the previously-existing services such as legal services, education and prevention programs, bringing all of Mazzoni’s programs and services to a single, central location.

The new Mazzoni Center location nearly doubles the size of the family and community medical practice space and creates more opportunities for hiring additional clinicians; it incorporates additional wellness services and provides care to many more people than the old space allowed. Mazzoni will also greatly expand its Open Door behavioral-health program, add several more counseling rooms and therapists, and open the region’s first Intensive Outpatient Program (IOP) dedicated to providing recovery services specifically for LGBTQ individuals struggling with addiction.

The new building also features a ‘town hall’ gathering space, where community events, educational programs, and wellness workshops will take place. As Ms. Jagannathan and Board of Directors members advocate about the new facility: “Providing our staff with a more functional and efficient work environment is another important step in improving overall delivery of care. Our staff is truly the heart and soul of what we do, and the reason that so many people have entrusted us with their care for so many years. Bringing the full staff together under one roof will foster more effective staff collaboration and communication, with common spaces designed and configured to promote meaningful interaction among our many care and service providers.”

The APA’s LGBTQ and Planning Division wishes the Mazzoni Center the very best in its efforts to strengthen it accountability and transparency needed to reconcile relations with our community and continue to fulfil its exceptionally important mission in the Philadelphia region. Congratulations on a successful transition to your new home, where we hope the newly restructured and community based organization will provide improved services for decades to come.

This article was authored by Justin Dula, AICP and Neal Stone, AICP and appeared in the LGBTQ & Planning Quarterly Newsletter, summer 2017 edition. Justin Dula, AICP, is the Chair of the Southeast Section of APA Pennsylvania and Co Vice-Chair for Communications of the LGBTQ and Planning Division. Neal Stone, AICP, is Past Chair of the LGBTQ and Planning Division. Photos courtesy of Justin Dula and Christian Xtn Hansen.

Healthy Community Design Survey Open

Want to help encourage healthy community design in Pennsylvania?

This quick (10 min) survey lets APA Pennsylvania’s Healthy Communities in PA task force know your healthy community design priorities to help identify resources for Pennsylvania’s communities. If you are involved with a program or project related to healthy community design, including it in this survey can help you advertise your program as a resource to other Pennsylvania communities.

Let them know what you think at bit.ly/HealthyComPA!

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