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Strategies to shape healthier places to live, work, and play
The Population Health Strategies team works with other county departments to build healthy communities in Clackamas County in two main ways:
- Considering the public’s health and safety in policy decisions
- Researching potential health impacts and harms in new county policies, projects and programs
Why This Work is Important
Health starts in our homes, schools and jobs. Shaping the places we live, work, and play to promote health requires planning, assessment and community partnerships– long before illness becomes an issue. The conditions that promote health, also known as the social determinants of health, determine the opportunities people have to lead healthy lives:
Health and Safety in All Policies
Health and Safety in All Policies is a collaborative approach that emphasizes consideration of the public’s health and safety in policy decisions. The approach is built on the foundation that health comes from a wide range of factors, many of which are outside the capabilities of a health department, and therefore require a shared responsibility and integrated policy response.
The goal is to create opportunities to consider health, safety and equity in the decision-making processes across Clackamas County. Some of our tools are:
- Providing consultations for how projects may affect health and safety.
- Creating a set of recommendations that feed into a planning process or investment strategy.
- Writing policy papers that provides information and options for decision makers on a particular topic area.
- Incorporating health-related data into another department’s reporting or forecasting.
- Convening stakeholders to discuss topics, areas of alignments or opportunities for collaboration.
- Conducting health impact assessments.
Health Impact Assessment (HIA)
A Health Impact Assessment (HIA) is a research process to understand the ways a policy, program or project might benefit or harm health in our community. The process is flexible, and is designed to provide decision makers with the best possible information about a topic, while engaging the community about their needs.
Each assessment has six steps:
- Screening: Determining if an HIA will be useful in promoting health
- Scoping: Understanding what areas related to health the HIA should review
- Assessment: Collecting data and research on current conditions and potential future health impacts
- Recommendation: Creating recommendations to protect health and avoid harm
- Reporting: Share report with the community and stakeholders
- Evaluation and monitoring: Reviewing the HIA process to improve and ensuring recommendations are used
HIAs that we’ve completed in Clackamas County:
