In order to use the Healthy Development Measurement Tool, a number of preliminary actions must be completed. These include:

1. Identify the plan or project that you are interested in analyzing.
2. Identify a series of analysis "inputs" related to your project/plan of interest.
3. Identify the geographic area of interest surrounding the project/plan.
4. Look over the Tool by Element and select sections of the Tool that are relevant to your plan/project and that you are interested in analyzing.

1. Identify the plan or project that you are interested in analyzing.

   How you select an application for analysis is dependent on a variety of reasons. Foremost in how you use the Tool is the amount of time and energy you have to conduct an application. With respect to the types of applications, there are a number of examples:

   • Community and residents organizations are concerned with the impacts of a large-scale development project in their neighborhood. You may want to use the Tool to assess that specific project, to identify project benefits and burdens, and to identify potential project improvements.
   • A developer is seeking to build support for a project. You may use the Tool as a checklist to inform design choices and demonstrate the benefits of projects.
   • The Planning Department has released a neighborhood Area Plan. To insure that long-range plans for that community provide the health resources needed for existing and future residents, you can apply the Tool to assess whether the Plan addresses the range of Tool objectives, to identify Plan deficiencies and to propose measurable objectives and policies/design strategies to advance Area Plan goals.

2. Identify a series of analysis "inputs" related to your project/plan of interest. At a minimum, these should include:

   • Relevant Project/Plan Documents: These materials will provide the basis for your analysis. Official plans/project proposals provide you the information needed to judge the extent to which a plan/project will have an impact on health. Examples of such documents include land use and area plans, development proposals, plan/project descriptions, development agreements, Environmental Impact Reports, Planning maps, and notes from relevant community meetings. This is an ongoing process – while you are applying the Tool you will come upon additional documents that can support your analysis.
   • Site visits/assessments: Often, attributes of the neighborhood or physical environment you are interested in will not be thoroughly described or explained in project/plan documents. Conducting one or ideally multiple site visit or assessment(s) can be a meaningful way of supplementing and/or qualifying the information you read about a plan or project. For example, look for the presence, absence, type, accessibility, quantity and quality off the following attributes: housing (e.g., single family, condos, SROs, lofts, etc.), commercial/retail, building heights, parks, on-street and off-street parking, public transit facilities, vehicle traffic (e.g., speed, volume), street width, pedestrian quality (e.g., crosswalks, width of sidewalks, curbs, pedestrian volume, countdown signals, trees, planters, cleanliness), school facilities, community facilities, safety (e.g., lighting, street activity) people on the street, noise, and arts and entertainment.

   Please note that the HDMT provides Demographic and Health Outcomes data to help contextualize your evaluation.

   Additional inputs to supplement your analysis, depending on time and available resources, could include:

   • Conducting key informant interviews
   • Attending community planning meetings
   • Conducting focus groups with project/neighborhood community advisory groups and key stakeholders
   • Gathering information on major regulations or policies affecting specific area – e.g., General Plans, neighborhood transportation plans, community benefit agreements
   • Conducting a comprehensive media/literature review of project area – e.g., review developer websites, newspaper articles
   • Conducting community surveys
   • Using forecasting models – e.g., pedestrian injuries, noise, air quality

   The goal of such inputs is to help enhance the evaluation of the plan. An important question to be answering is what other current or future plan/projects exist in your area of analysis that may impact upon whether the plan/project objectives are implemented. For example, at a community meeting, you might hear about a truck route being re-routed that will impact the future pedestrian walkway described in the plan you are analyzing. It is important to identify whether the proposed truck re-routing will impact upon this plan objective.

3. Identify the geographic area of interest surrounding the project/plan.

   Click here for an example of geographies. Based on your review of project/plan documents, determine your area of analysis. Are you concerned with the impacts of a specific development project on the neighborhood it is located it, or on surrounding neighborhoods? Are you concerned with the overall adequacy of a neighborhood area plan for that neighborhood? Depending on the plan or project you are assessing, neighborhood districts, zip codes, census tracts, or census block groups may represent your geographic level of analysis. Currently, the Tool provides baseline data on many indicators at the neighborhood level, as determined by SF Planning Department. Your geographic area of interest should be determined in advance of the application so that you can assess each community health indicator at the correct level of analysis.

4. Look over the Tool by Element and select sections of the Tool that are relevant to your plan/project of interest and that you are interested in analyzing.

   The selection of Tool components will depend on a variety of reasons. For example:

   • An initial assessment of relevance between Tool sections and the plan/project being reviewed. Different kinds of projects have different impacts--not every aspect of the Tool can be applied across every project/plan. Note, however, that even if you don't use all sections of the Tool, it is worth reading through the Tool in its entirety in case there are other development targets, policy or design strategies that could be incorporated into your analysis. For example, you may be focusing on a new park analysis, but skimming through the public infrastructure section, you may realize there are development targets related to schools and to art/cultural facilities that are relevant for your parks analysis.
   • Community requests and concerns about a particular set of project- or plan-related impacts (e.g., housing, infrastructure).
   • Amount of time and resources available to commit to the analysis.

> Learn more about how to conduct a Step-by-Step Application of the HDMT.