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Morehouse project helps East Point add health equity language to comprehensive plan; community advisory board formed to continue work
Summary
Morehouse School of Medicine presented results of a nearly $1.2 million federal health-equity demonstration in East Point: the project produced a community advisory board, community data maps and the explicit inclusion of health equity in the city’s comprehensive plan for the first time.
Morehouse School of Medicine and the City of East Point on May 19 reported the conclusion of a nearly four-year, federally funded project that aimed to advance health equity through local policy change and community capacity building, and described a community advisory board that will continue the work.
Megan Douglas of Morehouse School of Medicine told the council the project received $1.2 million from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Minority Health and worked with city staff and local partners to analyze health data, hold public engagement and propose policy changes. “We were tasked…to identify, modify and implement local policies that create or perpetuate health disparities and contribute to structural racism,” Douglas said.
Douglas and members of the newly formed East Point Health Equity Community Advisory Board said a central result was embedding health equity into the city’s comprehensive plan. Morehouse supplied maps showing life expectancy and rates of diabetes and high blood pressure varying across the city; the presenters said health equity is referenced about 40 times in the newly adopted plan and health data are now part of that land-use document.
Jacque Hemming, co-chair of the advisory board’s policy and advocacy committee, told council members the board will act as a local advocate and technical resource: the group will offer plain-language policy review, help track related state and federal legislation and push for zoning and land-use changes to reduce environmental and food-access disparities. Hemming said the CAB has identified housing, food access, land use and environmental justice as interconnected priorities and asked the council to “make health equity policy a standard in our city.”
Among specific recommendations, Morehouse and the CAB urged the council to include health-equity questions in zoning and land-use decisions, to translate comprehensive-plan language into zoning-code changes, and to fund city staff capacity for implementation. The presenters also proposed inclusionary-housing tools and more community-engaged planning processes.
Why it matters: The project reframes some planning and zoning decisions as health policy and gives the council a set of concrete options — from zoning text amendments to inclusionary housing measures — that could affect housing, transportation and environmental outcomes tied to community health.
What’s next: Council members discussed coordinating the CAB’s policy work with an upcoming zoning-code rewrite and asked staff to consider specific timelines and metrics for implementation. CAB leaders said the board intends to continue its outreach and to provide technical assistance to the city on measuring outcomes.
