The HDMT also provides a range of policy and design strategies that can advance health conditions and resources via the development process.
Increasingly, inter-disciplinary research demonstrates that the root causes of disease and illness, as well as strategies to improve health and well-being are dependent on community design, land use, and transportation.
It combines quantitative analysis of health indicators with a qualitative assessment of whether plans and projects meet tool development targets.
[citation needed] SFDPH has recognized that it has a legitimate agency interest in integrating health considerations into land use decision-making.
[5] The second driver was that SFDPH increasingly recognized that environmental health and justice issues in San Francisco had roots in land use and transportation planning decisions.
In addition, the high cost of housing made it difficult or families to leave their homes and find new places to live.
Third, on a national scale, the public health and urban planning communities were increasingly calling attention to the connections between the built environment (that is, land use, transportation systems, and community design) and health, particularly focusing on the contribution of the land use patterns (for example, sprawl) to physical inactivity, pedestrian safety, and air quality.
Findings illustrated that urban design and land use regulations could accomplish the complementary goals of preventing illness and ensuring environmental quality.
For example, creating higher density, mixed-use developments closer to transit and job centers would enhance public safety, prevent motor-vehicle injuries, increase access to goods and services, encourage walking or bicycling, reduce air pollution, and limit global warming.
While HIA was novel in the United States, it presented a potential way to gain consideration more pro-actively of both root causes of poor health and community needs in the land use development process.
SFDPH also conducted exploratory workshops with community members on the health impacts of housing subsidies, farmers' markets, and green schoolyards.
[citation needed] The HDMT was created through collaboration among development stakeholders and public agencies in San Francisco as a result of the ENCHIA.