Utah Advocates and Leaders Can Identify the Health of Neighborhoods and Inform Equitable Investments with New Healthy Places Index Tool

The Public Health Institute’s Public Health Alliance of Southern California program and Utah Department of Health and Human Services launched a new Utah Healthy Places Index (HPI) tool that utilizes a powerful and easy-to-use data and policy platform, capturing information at the neighborhood level on social conditions that affect health.

The data tool also uses an equity approach and informs what neighborhoods should be prioritized for investments, resources, and programs that support community well-being.  The tool can provide practical information for a variety of users, like public health professionals, local, regional and state agencies, planners, transportation agencies and nonprofit organizations/health advocates.

The Utah HPI was developed to help community leaders understand how different neighborhoods experience the community conditions known to impact health, such as education, job opportunities and transportation. The tool includes policy guides that serve as a resource to identify policy solutions for healthier community conditions.

The Utah Department of Health and Human Services Office of Health Promotion and Prevention led the development of the Utah HPI in collaboration with nearly 100 multi-sector partners from across the state, in partnership with PHI’s Public Health Alliance of Southern California who are the creators of California Healthy Places Index™.

California Healthy Places Index is an interactive online resource, which has been used by hundreds of state and local governments, community groups and independent agencies since 2018. California Healthy Places Index helps to determine local factors that predict life expectancy and compare conditions that influence health across the state and has helped direct more than $1 billion in funding to communities most in need.