Mental Health and Neighborhood Design

Academics at Philadelphia's major research institutions have been leading examinations into the intersection of public health and city planning. Mental health has become a center point of discussion. Both the sense of agency in public decision making and trauma-informed care have emerged as significant areas of interest that could affect how planners approach community engagement, policy development, and public investment.

Presenters explore how to move beyond testing whether a specific change to the built environment matters for health. They consider both the impacts of engagement on sense of agency and community inclusion as well as how trauma-informed care models developed for mental-health practitioners and systems may be applied to community engagement, policy decisions, and neighborhood-scale investments in the physical environment. Panelists and participants discuss how these areas of research may be incorporated into their own professional practice.

NPC Peer Reviewers assigned this presentation a learning level of Intermediate. For more on learning-level descriptions, visit our General Information Page.