Places, Spaces and People: How the Urban Environment Impacts Health

2010

Please note: reports dated earlier than June 2020 were published under our previous names: the USC Program for Environmental and Regional Equity (PERE) or the USC Center for the Study of Immigrant Integration (CSII).

The Alliance for a Better Community (ABC) released a new report “Places, Spaces and People: How the Urban Environment Impacts Health.” The report is the result of a community-driven research project wherein Boyle Heights and East LA residents and stakeholders identified key health concerns in the community, and developed strategic solutions. The resulting policy ideas are both significant and doable: they stress the importance of schools as epicenters for healthy living and focus infrastructure improvements on creating buffer zones around both schools and parks.

This report continues in PERE’s tradition of building university – community partnerships. PERE supported the research and helped to frame the final report in the broader context of health and place. In his forward, PERE Director, Manuel Pastor, reflects on how national trends towards creating healthy places – including First Lady Obama’s Let’s Move! initiative and the National Healthy Food Financing Initiative – set a strong framework in which ABC’s work can move forward.

Report

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Immigrant Integration & Racial Justice

Our work on immigrant integration and racial justice brings together three emphases: scholarship that draws on academic theory and rigorous research, data that provides information structured to highlight the process of immigrant integration over time, and engagement that seeks to create new dialogues with government, community organizers, business and civic leaders, immigrants and the voting public to advance immigrant integration and racial equity.

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Economic Inclusion & Climate Equity

In the area of economic inclusion, we at ERI advance academic theory and practical applications linking economic growth, environmental quality, and civic health with bridging of racial and other gaps; produce accessible and actionable data and analysis through the data tools; and establish research partnerships to deepen and advance the dialogue, planning, and actions around racial equity, environmental justice, and the built environment.

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ERI’s work in the area of governing power includes: conducting cross-disciplinary studies of today’s social movements, supporting learning and strategizing efforts to advance dialogues among organizers, funders, intermediaries, evaluators, and academics, and developing research-based social change frameworks and tools to inform—and be informed by—real-world, real-time efforts towards a vision of deep change.

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In 2020, the USC Program for Environmental and Regional Equity (PERE) and the USC Center for the Study of Immigrant Integration (CSII) merged to form the USC Equity Research Institute (ERI).

The full list of publications published under our previous and current names can be found in our publications directory.

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