Restoring Health Equity and Resilience to Cleveland Through Vacant Land Improvements - Western Reserve Land Conservancy (WRLC) is purposefully cleaning and greening neighborhoods in the City of Cleveland to remediate structural drivers of environmental injustice. These include abundant vacancy and environmental nuisances, low tree canopy, poor air quality, and lack of access to high-quality greenspace, all of which are prevalent in historically disinvested, socioeconomically vulnerable racially and ethnically minoritized communities, and erode social and community connections. Together with residents and community partners, and supported by the City of Cleveland, WRLC and researchers at The MetroHealth System and Cleveland Clinic propose to examine the impacts of improving Social Determinants of Health (SDOH) domains of (i) neighborhood environments and (ii) social and community context on the cardiovascular health of residents in targeted neighborhoods. Specifically, through WRLC's community-level cleaning and greening innovations to strengthen these two SDOH domains, we strive to improve two Leading Health Indicators identified in Healthy People 2030: increased numbers of adults (i) meeting current minimum guidelines for aerobic physical activity and muscle-strengthening activity, and (ii) with hypertension whose blood pressure is under control. Other anticipated impacts include resident and community-centered procedures for promoting access to green space, and prioritizing vacant land reuse using valid measurement and data representation strategies that generate intervention approaches anchored to community members’ experiences of health inequality. Though SDOH-based, upstream solutions often require time to reach deep-rooted disparities, actionable components of environmentally just neighborhoods, such as cleaner air, lower temperatures, and reduced chronic disease burden, can be realized more immediately. Quantitative and qualitative evidence generated from this proposed research will prototype techniques and technologies for targeting populations most poised for major health gains, and directly inform policy aimed at redressing historical and enduring processes of environmental and social disinvestment. Critically, in addition to improving Clevelanders’ health through greening transformation, this work formulates a data-driven model for national replication in other cities struggling with racial health equity, disparate impacts of climate change, and population loss.
