Build Healthy Places Network: January 2020

With funding support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Build Healthy Places Network convened a collaborative team led by the Chicago-based Metropolitan Planning Council—together with partners at the University of Chicago Center for Spatial Data Science and the Chicago Department of Public Health—to develop a health return on investment (ROI) model and calculator. The goal of this effort was to provide a starting point for estimating the health impact and societal value of comprehensive community development investments.

Using the Conway Center in Washington, DC, (a $90 million community development investment that opened in early 2019) as an example, it estimates the potential to generate $351.5 million in health returns over the life of the project. This represents a 291 percent rate of return accrued to a range of organizations including hospital systems, bank lenders and other investors, transportation agencies, residents, and society at large.

Build Healthy Places Network (San Francisco, CA)