Equity is a core component of a healthy community. Using an equity lens when developing and implementing municipal planning, policy, and environmental design helps to ensure systemic barriers are removed or reduced, and better solutions are developed. Status of Women Canada and City of Ottawa partnered to produce the 2018 Equity and Inclusion Lens Handbook, a comprehensive guide that helps municipal staff and managers examine their planning, program development and delivery activities to ensure they are inclusive of the full diversity of residents. Browse the guidebook.

Sometimes, it's easier to learn by example than by concept alone. Each year, the PlanH team selects a handful of success stories from its grant projects and shares them with the PlanH network, so we can learn from their ideas, challenges and innovations. Our Community Stories page includes an interactive map and dropdown search options so you can easily find stories of communities with similar assets and challenges to those in your own community. Our recent favourites include North Cowichan's work in social connectedness and cultural learning, and Vernon's approach to becoming a child and youth-friendly city.

How do planners, architects, and engineers quantify the impact of their design projects on communities? The Conference Board of Canada and DIALOG Design have released a framework that measures how design impacts community well-being. The group broke down five 'domains' of community well-being into 18 indicators—everything from mobility and integration to local economy—that provide hints as to the health of each of those domains.

"Our goal is to break [a project] down into manageable conversations,” said Gomez-Palacio in a recent interview. “It’s a methodology that allows us to come into any setting and host an informed conversation about meaningfully improving community well-being."

Download the 200-page Framework at the Conference Board of Canada's website (login/registration required).

One of our favourite events this summer was the Public Health Association of BC's Summer School, a two-day event bringing together public health researchers and practitioners to explore a particular focus area. This year's theme was Building Safe and Inclusive Communities, and with presentations ranging from cultural safety to the importance of risky play, the event did not disappoint. 

BC Healthy Communities' Community Facilitator, Shannon Clarke, attended the conference. Hear her highlights from the event and her top takeaways for public health practice moving forward.