On September 19, Governor Jerry Brown signed a bill that seeks to create neighborhoods that promote health of all Californians.  Authored by Assemblymember Bill Monning (D-Carmel), Assembly Bill 441 would require the California Transportation Commission to take the health of residents potentially impacted by transportation projects into consideration with making planning decisions.

In particular, the new law benefits California’s communities of color by addressing environmental factors that can lead to health disparities such as as asthma, diabetes, obesity, and some cancers. “Across the state, people of color are more likely to live in areas that negatively impact our health, such as neighborhoods with high traffic density, higher pedestrian accident rates, and poorer air quality”, said Ellen Wu, Executive Director of the California Pan Ethnic Health Network who co-sponsored the bill.

Learn more about AB 441.

Recommended Resources
Turning Data into Action (a project of the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research’s Health DATA Program)
California Pan Ethnic Health Network
Transform

Tags: CTC, planning, transportation

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 20th, 2012 at 2:14 pm and is filed under air pollution, Asthma, Chronic Disease, health disparities. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.