Assessing  Health In Your Community

For an in-depth overview click the button below 

Shape BHAM: Visualizing health in Birmingham city neighborhoods

Click below to view the Shape Bham Plan  

Shape Bham Plan Document

Shape Bham is an initiative that brings academic trained researchers and city planners, alike, to translate research into practice, and to integrate health and equity into the Birmingham City planning process at the neighborhood level.  Shape Bham is a collaborative effort involving the Regional Planning Commission of Greater Birmingham (RPCGB), City of Birmingham, University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) Schools of Public Health and Sociology, and the Edge of Chaos. This initiative is supported by a grant from the Community Foundation of Greater Birmingham and the Health Impact Project, a collaboration of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and The Pew Charitable Trusts. 

Click below to visit the Birmingham Healthy Communities Assessment Tool Website

HCAT Website

Shape Bham coalesces city planning and public health policies into a uniform health assessment tool and neighborhood “score cards” so that policy makers and neighborhood residents can better measure the quality of life in Birmingham neighborhoods and proactively target equitable access to health promoting resources across all neighborhoods. To learn more click above.

Shape Bham uses the Healthy Communities Assessment Tool (HCAT), which was developed by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, to assess the quality of life in neighborhoods based on a vast array of social and environmental conditions that impact community health. To learn more click above.

Health is a central factor in the quality of life of Americans, and is affected by a wide array of social, economic, and environmental influences. Yet, the intersection of health and planning policies, especially local planning policy initiatives, is not always obvious. ​The City of Birmingham Comprehensive Plan and associated Framework Plans sit at the intersection of planning and health. As such, the Shape Bham project strives to bridge the gap between planning and public health policies. To learn more click above.