ENCHIA Process
In response to development pressures, many communities called on public health officials to evaluate the ensuing health impacts and to advocate for healthy environments. For this reason, the San Francisco Department of Public Health initiated the Eastern Neighborhoods Community Health Impact Assessment (ENCHIA) to analyze how development affects social determinants of health within several San Francisco neighborhoods.
The HDMT was created through collaboration among development stakeholders and public agencies in San Francisco as a result of the ENCHIA. The process was guided by the principles of "health impact assessment" and designed to act on growing scientific understanding that optimal health cannot be achieved by improving health services or individual behavior change alone, but requires advancing healthful neighborhood conditions. Such conditions include:
- Adequate housing
- Access to public transit
- Schools, parks and public spaces
- Safe routes for pedestrians and bicyclists
- Meaningful and productive employment
- Unpolluted air, soil, and water
- Cooperation, trust, and civic participation
Facilitated and staffed by SFDPH, the eighteen-month ENCHIA process was guided by a multi-stakeholder Community Council of over twenty diverse organizations including:
- Community planning and design
- Economic and neighborhood development
- Environmental justice
- Homeless
- Open space
- Housing
- Transportation
- Bicycle
- Food systems
- Child care and childhood development advocates
- Low-wage and union workers
- Non-profit and private developers
- Property-owners
- Architects
- Small businesses
Read more about this topic: Healthy Development Measurement Tool
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