The Inclusion of Health in County Comprehensive Planning

Abstract

This article explores what drives communities in United States to include health objectives in their comprehensive plans. By using a place-based approach, this model is able to take into account variables such as health status, social equity, political institutions, and built environment. The findings suggest that communities are more likely to adopt health as a goal based on their political institutional structure and environmental quality (e.g., air pollution) than based on health status and social equity factors. Therefore, communities are responding to poor health and heightened mortality per se but rather to environmental factors that are associated with poor health outcomes.