The Federal Highway Administration has released a report that presents a model for state departments of transportation to integrate public health considerations into their transportation planning and decision making.

The FHWA report, “Statewide Transportation Planning for Healthy Communities,” was developed for FHWA by the USDOT Volpe Center and includes case studies on the California, Iowa, Massachusetts, Minnesota, and North Carolina DOTs and their collaboration with public health partners. It also provides a synthesis of trends, lessons learned, and opportunities for DOT peer agencies and their partners to consider health in transportation planning and programming.

The report complements the earlier FHWA report by the same team, “Metropolitan Area Transportation Planning for Healthy Communities,” which evaluates how several MPOs and their partners are collaborating to bring broad consideration of public health into their planning. Both reports and corresponding one-page summaries can be found on the health page of the FHWA/FTA Transportation Planning Capacity Building Program at: http://www.planning.dot.gov/healthy_communities_desc.asp

We encourage you to disseminate the report through your website, newsletter, or networks as you deem appropriate. Please feel free to make use the following language as useful:

• Announcements in newsletters, etc. about the new report: The Federal Highway Administration has released a report that presents a model for state departments of transportation to integrate public health considerations into their transportation planning and decision making. The white paper, and a previous, complementary white paper about the metropolitan area planning process, are available from the FHWA/FTA Transportation Planning Capacity building program:http://www.planning.dot.gov/healthy_communities_desc.asp
• Website links to the health reports: The Federal Highway Administration has developed two reports that present models for state departments of transportation and metropolitan planning organizations to integrate public health considerations into their transportation planning and decision making. Both reports and corresponding one-page summaries can be found on the health landing page of the FHWA/FTA Transportation Planning Capacity Building Program:  http://www.planning.dot.gov/healthy_communities_desc.asp

Please contact FHWA project manager Fred Bowers with any questions or comments about the reports (Frederick.Bowers@dot.gov).