The Conservation Law Foundation (CLF) received a two year planning grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to collect baseline data and design a longitudinal research study that will measure the impact of environmental conditions, particularly mixed-income, mixed-use, transit oriented real estate development (“TOD”) projects, on health in a variety of Massachusetts neighborhoods. The research study will track environmental conditions and health in neighborhoods targeted for investment in such TOD projects compared to environmental conditions and health in control neighborhoods with similar demographics, built environments and health outcome characteristics over a five- to ten-year period. The study will track neighborhood changes across multiple domains to include economic, social, behavioral, environmental, and health outcome indicators. Taken together, these indicators can help predict and track neighborhood change over time, and provide important new insights about the connections between the built environment, opportunity, behavior, and health. The study will utilize a longitudinal, mixed method design, drawing on health data and resident’s experiences to understand how development impacts health. On July 6, 2016, Vedette Gavin, who serves as the Director of Research and Partnerships at CLF, provided an overview of the project for surveyors hired by YMCA Southcoast and to go over survey procedures that will be used to engage New Bedford and Fall River residents in the survey.. Click here for a 25-minute video of the first part of the presentation. For more information, contact YMCA Project Leader Gail Hartnett Rodrigues at 508-996-9622.