HDMT Instructions
The HDMT is comprised of three primary components:
- Community Health Indicator System - Over 100 indicators of social, environmental and economic conditions that can be used to evaluate baseline conditions in a neighborhood, planning area or city, and to monitor those conditions prospectively. Data are disaggregated by neighborhood and where possible are mapped spatially to highlight disparities.
- “Healthy Development” Checklist - A downloadable checklist of development targets (associated with each indicator) that can be used to assess whether urban plans and projects help achieve community health objectives.
- Menu of Policies and Design Strategies - A listing of potential actions that can be taken by project sponsors or policy-makers to achieve development targets in the checklist and advance community health objectives.
These components can be used independently or collectively to evaluate a project or plan by asking the following questions:
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1) Does a place have healthy living and working conditions?
Use HDMT indicator data to assess baseline neighborhood conditions.
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2) Does a plan or project advance health-related conditions?
Evaluate plan/project against HDMT healthy development checklist targets and baseline conditions.
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3) What policies, implementing actions and/or design recommendations would advance community health objectives?
Informed by HDMT policy and design strategies, identify recommendations for plan and project improvements.
Of course, these components can also be used independently to support your work. For example:
- Community health indicator data can be used to perform a baseline conditions assessment of your neighborhood. Accessing the data in this way can support grant writing, needs assessments, budget analysis, and public advocacy. An example of how HDMT indicator data has been used is available in our Bernal Heights Case Study.
- The objectives pages of the HDMT include a number of policies, design strategies and established standards that can be used to hold development plans and projects accountable to. While you may not want to conduct a full-scale application, you can use these policies and design strategies as a “glossary” of methods to improve local development plans and projects. Similarly, the established standards provide national, state and local targets that can be used to call attention to positive aspects and/or shortcomings in projects and plans. For example, if a neighborhood plan does not include any targets for open space, you may want to reference your City General Plan’s open space targets. Or, if your General Plan does not include any open space targets, you may want to reference the National Parks and Recreation Association standard of 10 acres of open space per 1,000 residents.
- Health-based rationales and research citations provide an extensive body of evidence that supports the connections between health and urban development. If you are interested in beginning work around development impacts on health, this research can support grant writing and targeted interventions in specific content areas (e.g., parks, child care, and housing). These citations are distributed through the HDMT, on both objective and indicator pages.
> In this section, you can:
- Review the Preliminary Steps you need to take to apply the HDMT to a land use plan or project
- Understand how to conduct a Step-by-Step Application
- Review a HDMT Application Example
- Access a HDMT Application Worksheet
- Learn our Notification Requirements using the HDMT
- Review our Endorsement Disclaimer