The Yours, Mine, and Ours — Public Health series highlights how our state's public health agencies keep us healthy, safe, and informed about issues impacting physical and mental health in our communities, homes, workplaces, and schools. The series is made possible with funding from the Michigan Association for Local Public Health.

Fitlot outdoor fitness park at Rotary Park in Lansing.

Public health and infrastructure go hand in hand, as organizations across Michigan work to address the built environment's critical role in shaping health outcomes. Through statewide initiatives and collaborations with public health organizations, efforts focus on improving access to safe housing, clean water, food security, and active living spaces all within non-toxic environments. These projects aim to remove barriers, promote equity, and inspire long-term health improvements statewide.

“It is important for public health entities to focus on issues regarding the built environment and provide education about its impact because the built environment plays such a critical role in shaping health outcomes, quality of life, and overall well-being,” says Michigan Department of Health and Human Services public information officer Lynn Sutfin. “Improving the built environment can have a significant impact on preventing chronic diseases, through improved access to healthy food, opportunities to increase physical activity (encouraging healthy behaviors), and mitigating exposure to environmental hazards.”

The statewide Social Determinants of Health (SDOH) Strategy, Michigan’s Roadmap to Healthy Communities is one of MDHHS’s ongoing programs to continue improving the built environment and how community members interact with it. 

“Michigan’s Roadmap to Healthy Communities provides a framework to holistically address the social determinants of health, including the built environment,” explains Sutfin. “This strategy hopes to improve health outcomes and advance equity through a collaborative, upstream approach to remove barriers to social and economic opportunity.”

The MDHHS Policy and Planning Office, in partnership with MSHDA, has launched the Good Housing = Good Health Program to expand housing stabilization resources and services statewide. Funding enables local health partners to employ community health workers, or navigators, who actively connect Michigan residents with housing resources and services.

The Lansing River Trail gives urban families opportunities to build health through physical activity.

MDHHS partners with and highlights a number of other public health organizations focusing on issues like food and housing insecurity as well as infrastructure with regards to how these issues impact public health. One such organization is the Michigan Fitness Foundation (MFF), a 501(c)(3) private nonprofit organization developed in 1994 to collaborate with the Michigan Governor’s Council on Physical Fitness, Health and Sports. 

MFF's work primarily consists of sharing health information around food and exercise “in the most simple terms,” according to MFF director of communications Mary McGuire. In doing so, MFF discovered that one of the primary reasons for community members choosing not to be active outside is because they simply don’t feel safe in their built environments.

“We know that when people aren’t able to be safe when they’re walking, riding, or rolling, it affects civic engagement and how they develop relationships as much as it impacts physical and mental health,” says McGuire. “We want things to be accessible for everyone. There needs to be equity.”

Initiatives that MFF continues to implement and bolster include Rec-Connect, which connects educators and librarians to youth and families during the summer months. For example, Storywalk® combines local walking trails with blown-up images from picture books about healthy habits to encourage more movement as well as education. Safe Routes to School Michigan, based on a federal program originally launched in 2005 as part of the Federal Highway Administration Transportation Enhancement Program, ensures children are able to safely walk or roll to school instead of relying on public transportation or a family member owning a vehicle. Projects like these, McGuire says, help to redirect the way youth and adults think about health and fitness while also addressing infrastructure and economic barriers to living an active lifestyle that they may face .

“We all want to live in a safe space that is comfortable and affordable, where we have conveniences, and we can be efficient,” says McGuire. “We should all ask ourselves the questions, 'What can we do to improve the quality of life for everyone? What can we contribute to public health that will make our lives better?'”

Industrial operations frequently harm the surrounding environment and the health of residents living there.

But safe walking trails and improved infrastructure for those reliant on human-powered travel like bicycles are only one aspect of how improving the built environment can improve public health in general.

The Urban Collaboratory at the University of Michigan works directly with city stakeholders to identify the challenges community residents face regarding the built environment and develop innovative solutions to those modern problems. Collaboratory projects with these stakeholders and U-M faculty and students aim to “integrate information, communication technology, and sensor technologies in a comprehensive fashion to observe, manage, and control urban processes — all with the goal of improving residents’ overall quality of life,” according to its website.

Curt Wolf“We view the lab as a support unit for U-M faculty to step outside the university and translate their research into practice,” says Urban Collaboratory managing director Curt Wolf. “We want to map community problems back to the university in a meaningful way, and come back with specific solutions to have meaningful outcomes in improving issues the community is facing.”

The Urban Collaboratory focuses on developing solutions for the built environment using an environmental justice lens, with much of that work focusing on climate change, community water systems, and health impacts related to things like microplastics and PFAS. Wolf explains that the lab works very closely with both U-M faculty on developing new projects and initiatives to tackle these issues and communities beyond Ann Arbor, such as its work with the city of Dearborn, where close proximity to major manufacturing companies frequently impacts the health of residents and the environment.

“We have an incredible network of stakeholders at the table,” says Wolf. “We frequently work with the state and people who make the decisions, but part of the secret to making greater change is also connecting with the communities affected by those decisions.”

The primary issue that both Wolf and McGuire recognize in making substantial infrastructural change that makes communities safer and promotes more physical activity is cost and lack of resources. Projects centered around improving water systems to prevent flooding or making roads safer for pedestrians and cyclists are not only expensive for communities to implement, but also take a lot of time and work to complete. Both Wolf and McGuire recognize that this work is integral to improving public health at large.

“We live in an era of aging infrastructure across the world, but we only have so much money,” says Wolf. “We need to be smart about our investments to prioritize health and think of new innovative ways to do that since there are limited resources.”

“Patience is definitely a virtue when you’re looking at changing a community, but we know it isn’t impossible,” says McGuire. “There will always be hurdles when working on infrastructure, but the end result is usually worth it.”

The Urban Collaboratory's work includes a focus on community water systems and health impacts related to contaminants like microplastics and PFAS.

Through their work with local communities and state representatives, both Wolf and McGuire hope that their organizations can continue to provide health insights when discussing infrastructure improvements. While much of the Urban Collaboratory’s work is on water safety and the MFF focuses on health education for youth and their families, they share an understanding of how addressing one issue can ultimately cause a ripple effect and bring about greater change for everyone.

“All of these topics, like mobility, infrastructure and clean water, all seem to cross over,” says Wolf. “We want to bring new ideas to the table and think beyond simple solutions like just building bigger pipes.”

“Our goal is to inspire people to eat healthy and move more,” says McGuire. “If we provide good examples, share our knowledge, and provide resources that help communities, I think that’s good and can really help people.”

To learn more about how MDHHS and other public health organizations are working to improve the public environment across the state, visit the MDHHS website. More information about ongoing U-M Urban Collaboratory projects can be found here. More information about ongoing MFF projects can be found here. 

“Living in a home that does not have known or perceived environmental hazards is important to the physical and mental health of Michigan’s residents,” says Sutfin. “MDHHS will continue to provide environmental health education and assistance to promote and protect the health of Michigan residents.”

Rylee Barnsdale is a Michigan native and longtime Washtenaw County resident. She wants to use her journalistic experience from her time at Eastern Michigan University writing for the Eastern Echo to tell the stories of Washtenaw County residents that need to be heard.

Photos by John Russell.
Mary McGuire, Lynn Sutfin, and Curt Wolf photos courtesy subjects.

The Yours, Mine, and Ours — Public Health series highlights how our state's public health agencies keep us healthy, safe, and informed about issues impacting physical and mental health in our communities, homes, workplaces, and schools. The series is made possible with funding from the Michigan Association for Local Public Health.