Over the course of the year, Equitable Cities has played a pivotal role in engaging the community in Newark to better understand how the urban environment can be designed to encourage healthier lifestyles. The Physical Activity through Community Design project is part of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Racial and Ethnic Approaches to Community Health (REACH) program, which aims to reduce barriers to physical activity to promote healthier lifestyles and reduce the prevalence of chronic diseases and comorbidities. The project is led by
the Newark Beth Israel Medical Center, an affiliate of RWJBarnabas (NBIMC), who hired Equitable Cities to deliver the community engagement components of the project to gather insights on existing habits of physical activity and what residents believe would make it easier for them to get around without a car.
Equitable Cities conducted focus groups, daytime and nighttime walk audits, and presented initial findings to community advocates for additional feedback. By emphasizing existing relationships with community organizations, like the Casa de Don Pedro schools and Barringer High School, the engagement was able to capture youth and adult voices, while strengthening ties between NBIMC and these educational anchors. Through these engagement activities, we developed a report suggesting programming, infrastructure, and policy recommendations that can be tailored to existing capacity and collaboration possibilities. As this project is quite large, the input we collected is just the start of getting a better picture of what the Newark community needs to pursue healthier lifestyles. We look forward to continued opportunities to bring these suggestions to fruition.
