For decades, advocates have been spinning their wheels trying to reduce health disparities. Health-care is a necessary but insufficient weapon in this battle, leading many to pursue environmental or place-based approaches to promoting health such as increasing access to healthy foods, improving air quality, and contributing to land use planning.

Now, lawyers across the country are joining this pursuit. A Boston hospital is using lawyers to demand accountability and fight for healthier living conditions for poor families. In Los Angeles, organizers are helping tenants living in unhealthy housing find legal counsel and press landlords to improve their rental properties. Strategies such as these are gaining traction and have been shown to reduce illness as well as time spent in a clinic or hospital for those who can least afford to be there.

Check out the embed player below for a recent story on Marketplace about the practice:

[MP3]

Tags: asthma, health and place, healthy communities, healthy food access, marketplace, why place matters

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 3rd, 2008 at 2:21 pm and is filed under Uncategorized, center for health and place. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.