The Design Thinking for Parks initiative applies co-creation and co-design methods to assess New York City communities’ use of their local parks. Community members were invited to participate in a series of co-creation workshops to discuss the value of local parks and strategies to increase park usage in their respective communities.

In collaboration with the NYC Department of Parks & Recreation, the PARCS Study evaluates the impact of citywide park redesign and renovation on physical activity, mental health, and community well-being.

We have a poor understanding of obesity and chronic disease among different subgroups within a minority population (e.g., between different groups of Asians, Black Americans or Latinos). This initiative includes two strands of research: the first aims at theory building and the identification of novel intervention levers by employing group model building (a system dynamics technique) to develop complex systems maps of the sociocultural ecosystem of childhood obesity in specific ethnic communities.

In partnership with the University of Nebraska and Hacettepe University in Turkey, CSCD is a lead investigator in this population-representative, SES-stratified survey study of social, behavioral and policy factors in the understanding and prevention of childhood obesity in Turkey. Obesity is rapidly rising in Turkey and the Eastern Mediterranean region. We have found that in major metropolitan areas such as Ankara, the prevalence of childhood obesity is particularly alarming, much higher than national estimates published to date. A full report on the prevalence estimates is forthcoming in an accepted article.

In collaboration with the Healthy Weight Commitment Foundation, the Center has been working to create and pilot a benchmarking system to assess the design, performance, and impact of food and beverage industry-sponsored community health programs in order to identify the best practices to maximize health impact and return on industry investment. Output from this work feeds into a common platform for collective impact to spur further innovation and cross-sectional collaboration.

This transdiscplinary initiative integrates public health and architecture to provide new best practice school design guidelines to promote healthy behaviors and lifestyles. The work has informed the health and design pillar of the American Institute of Architects and a prototype school has been built in Virginia. More details of the products and publications from this work can be seen here.