Healthy New Jersey

Governor Phil Murphy • Lt. Governor Tahesha Way

Healthy Community Planning

Resources

Environmental and community conditions can directly affect public health status and play a major role in quality of life, years of healthy life lived, and health disparities. Safe air, land, and water are fundamental to a healthy community, as is access to nutritious food, and outdoor and green spaces. New Jersey’s Home Rule Act grants municipal governments broad authorities to enact ordinance and regulations providing for public welfare and order, and stands as one of the major sources of authorization for local autonomy in the State. Municipalities can leverage these powers to address local conditions that affect the health of their residence.  For example, New Jersey’s municipal governments can promote and improve environmental public health by:

  • Adopting, pursuant to the New Jersey Municipal Land Use Law (N.J.S.A. 40:55D-1), a master plan that establishes land use priorities, and enacting zoning ordinances that dictate where and in what form development can happen, all with the purpose of protecting the health, safety, and welfare of community residents.
  • Establishing an Environmental Commission (N.J.S.A. 40:56A-1) authorized to 1) advise and research local environmental issues to better inform governing decisions on proposed development; 2) develop and maintain an inventory of environmental resources and environmentally sensitive community assets; and 3) educate and inform residents on environmental and public health issues and actions.
  • Developing minimum practice standards and capabilities within the municipal Board of Health, which is responsible for ensuring the delivery of specific requirements as outlined in New Jersey Department of Health rules (N.J.A.C. 8:52). Increasingly, the practice of local public health nationally is evolving to a framework of Public Health 3.0 in which public health officials work collaboratively with community partners and local officials in other sectors to advance collective impact focused on social determinants of health.
  • Participate in Sustainable Jersey, a nonprofit organization that establishes voluntary municipal actions to promote local sustainability. Sustainable Jersey outlines discrete actions that municipalities, led by appointed green teams, can take to earn points towards certification. Sustainable Jersey actions are categorized in ways that align with the HCP-NJ environmental public health indicators, including brownfield redevelopment, emergency management, waste management, health and wellness, land use and transportation, natural resources and sustainability and climate planning. In addition, Sustainable Jersey recently established Health Gold for certified municipalities interested in developing a more comprehensive focus on environmental and public health.

Focus groups conducted by the New Jersey Departments of Environmental Protection and Health with local planners, health officials and environmental commissioners as part of HCP-NJ’s early development showed local officials’ strong commitment of to use their authorities, roles and responsibilities to address environmental conditions in their communities that may affect health.  However, local officials stressed the need for technical assistance and easy access to local environmental and health data to support their efforts to address environmental conditions that may affect health.  The HCP-NJ summary reports are designed to arm each NJ municipality with their data on specific environmental public health indicators and highlights areas in need of improvement. Through the “Turning Data into Action” pages in the report, municipalities are given a snapshot on Statewide efforts to address each indicator as well as suggested actions that residents, governments and community organizations can take to improve environmental and health outcomes. The various resources highlighted in those pages, as well as other relevant resources on planning, funding, and action implementation, are compiled below to help towns get started.

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