Community Benefits for Public Health (CB4PH) Collective

Community Benefit Agreements (CBAs) are agreements between private economics developers and community coalitions that aim to procure meaningful benefits for the residents most impacted by the development project. Such benefits often include first source hiring and vendor requirements, affordable housing, and environmental mitigations. The CBA movement has the potential to have a significant positive impact on the social determinants of health (SDOH) while advancing health outcomes through a Health in All Policies approach that incorporates critical Health Justice principles.

The Network for Public Health Law recognizes the need to connect public health practitioners and others working to improve the health of their communities to this important movement. We have partnered with the Detroit People’s Platform, the Sugar Law Center for Economic and Social Justice, and Wayne State University Law School’s Damon J. Keith Center for Civil Rights to explore how the public health community can support those working to obtain and implement CBAs.

Purpose

The purpose of CB4PH is to create awareness around the overlapping concerns of public health practitioners who seek to advance the SDOH and those working to procure CBAs. We work to educate those in public health on CBAs and those in community-based organizations on the SDOH. We also aim to create community and to provide models for both groups to support each other’s work.

Vision

CBAs are viewed as tools to improve the SDOH through community-led efforts to obtain meaningful benefits that ultimately drive better health outcomes.

Values

We emphasize the need for community leadership in partnerships with public health practitioners and community-informed approaches to advancing public health and racial equity through CBAs. CB4PH embraces the Health in All Policies approach in implementing this vision with the incorporation of critical Health Justice principles.

Helpful Definitions

Health in All Policies – “Health in All Policies is a collaborative approach to improve the health of all people by incorporating health considerations into decision-making across sectors and policy areas.”

Social Determinants of Health – “Social determinants of health (SDOH) are the conditions in the environments where people are born, live, learn, work, play, worship, and age that affect a wide range of health, functioning, and quality-of-life outcomes and risks.”

The Health Justice Framework – “Health justice provides a community-driven approach to transform the government’s efforts to address the SDOH and eliminate health disparities. Based in part on principles from the reproductive justice, environmental justice, food justice, and civil rights movements, health justice includes three guiding principles: 1) truth and reconciliation; 2) community-driven structural change; and 3) financial supports. By using these principles, the government can improve their efforts to address the SDOH and eliminate health disparities by acknowledging the problem of structural discrimination; empowering less privileged groups to create and implement structural change; and providing support to redress harm.”