Healthy Austin
The Healthy Austin priority program seeks to improve community health and addresses how health risk factors are directly affected by our surroundings. This priority program works to address key elements of community health including physical activity, recreation, access to healthy foods, strengthening the local food system, tobacco-free living, access to healthcare, and improving the built environment to support healthy living.
Game Changer
Health outcomes are a key consideration for future development and integral in achieving a complete community. Over the last ten years, a major gamechanger toward achieving the goals of Imagine Austin has been the increased attention to incorporating health considerations into program and policy decision-making while considering the influence of race, income levels, education, and the built environment on health outcomes. This has been demonstrated through sustained community health planning, ensuring that community voice guides local priorities and a data-driven focus on health disparities and systemic inequities.
Crucially, the City has cemented the understanding that chronic health conditions and shorter life expectancy are directly correlated to where someone lives. Furthermore, the systems, institutions, and built environment directly impact a healthy life. Important community advocacy held us accountable in addressing these gaps and specifically led to the 2015 City Council Resolution related to focusing on health and economic equity and the subsequent Health Inequities in Travis County Report, increased investments in public health and social services, and the 2017 Mayor’s Taskforce on Institutional Racism and Systemic Inequities Report. These efforts have been key building blocks that now extend into ongoing policy, plans, and investments that shape how we build the city, including Imagine Austin by rewriting the land development code, the Climate Equity Plan, the Austin Strategic Mobility Plan, the adoption of Vision Zero committing to the goal of zero traffic-related fatalities; the adoption of Fast Track Cities committing to end the AIDS epidemic by 2030; the adoption of the Age-Friendly Action Plan; the adoption of Austin’s Action Plan to End Homelessness; and the City’s Strategic Direction 2023.
Highlights
Pandemic Public Health Response
The COVID-19 pandemic has had a tremendous impact on our community. The City of Austin’s response began in January of 2020. Its public servant heroes investigated over 250,000 positive cases, administered almost 400,000 vaccines contributing to an overall 74% fully vaccinated population, provided 218,000 free PCR tests, and distributed 22,000 free home testing kits. There were countless efforts to support the community through a health equity and nurse call center; personal protective equipment and food distribution to more than 29,000 families; provisions for isolation facility, infusion center, and protective lodging; and focused community-based outreach, risk communications, and mass media. Focused efforts to keep schools and childcare centers safe included constant staff
communications to schools and childcare centers and providing health and safety supplies to 300 childcare programs through more than 1,200 deliveries and distribution events. The community’s willingness to get tested, get vaccinated, and follow masking and other protective measures have helped Austin and Travis County reduce the spread of this disease; allowing our businesses and schools to open safely, reduced the burden on our healthcare system, and protected the most vulnerable members of our community.
Food Accessibility
As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, significant innovation has occurred in food access programs. For example, Farmshare Austin, operator of the City-supported mobile produce markets, shifted to curbside delivery and a hybrid curbside/in-person market model. Other innovations include Austin Public Health neighborhood centers piloting a food delivery program in partnership with Amazon and the Central Texas Food Bank and a relaunch of the Healthy Corner Store program by Austin Public Health and Economic Development to encourage fresh produce in convenience stores.
Additionally, the dual crisis of the COVID-19 pandemic and Winter Storm Uri highlighted the fragility of our food system. They underscored the need for intentional coordination to strengthen community resilience. In June of 2021, Austin City Council directed a multi-lingual engagement and planning process to develop a 5-year comprehensive food plan and allocated American Rescue Plan Act resources to help fund the initiative. The Office of Sustainability is leading this effort and intends to deliver a final plan to Council by early 2024.
Community gardens on City-owned land have remained open because food cultivation is an essential activity. The Community Gardens Program offered supplemental support to gardens on City-owned land (parkland and land owned by other city departments). Seeds, seedlings, compost, and mulch were provided to community gardens to help increase food production. The Community Gardens Program also partnered with the Texas AgriLife Extension Service to help distribute their vegetable seeds intended for the canceled East Austin Garden Fair.
Tobacco Free Environments
Significant health disparities exist for tobacco use; however, the last five years have shown the development of new resources and programs to address these disparities. The Breathe with Pride coalition launched in 2021 focused on policy, systems, and environmental changes to reduce tobacco disparities among LGBTQ2IA+ communities. This has led to the launch of a community-driven media and awareness campaign, tobacco-free events, and workplace policies at several community organizations. Additional awareness campaigns were created to highlight the impact of e-cigarettes and vaping on teens and young adults, a response to the severe lung injury outbreak of 2020.
Active and Healthy Lifestyles
The first Active Living Plan for Austin and Travis County was created in 2020 with input from City, County, and community leaders. Campaigns have focused on raising awareness of the availability of indoor and outdoor recreation opportunities at a free or reduced price.
The Cities Connecting Children to Nature initiative created a Walkable Greenspaces map in response to COVID-19 to encourage teachers to take learning outdoors. The map displays the nearest green space within a short walk to Austin ISD schools in an effort to provide the opportunity for physically distancing educators and their students.
Austin Transportation Department’s Vision Zero Program helped implement over 850 miles of speed limit reductions, completed nearly a dozen major intersection safety projects, and implemented low-cost, high-impact safety treatments at dozens of locations throughout the City to significantly reduce fatalities and serious injuries on Austin roadways. The Active Transportation and Street Design Division (ATSD) completed over 25 miles of new and improved bicycle and trail facilities, including over 5 miles of protected bikeways. ATSD and Austin Transportation Department’s Parking Enterprise Division greatly improved the Bike Parking Program, leading to significant maintenance improvements to bike parking and the installation of 35 new bike racks in the public right of way.
ATSD also launched the Contraflow Transit Lane project on Guadalupe Street, which involved a partnership between Active Transportation, the Public Works Department, and Capital Metro, to accomplish a Zach Scott Street two-way protected bikeway, which includes the city’s first completely protected intersection for active transportation users at Zach Scott Street and Berkman Drive.
Safe Routes to School continued to promote Walk to School Day in September and Bike and Roll to School Day in May. The enthusiasm for these events reached a new high in the 2021/2022 school year, with over 20 schools participating in Bike to School Day, the highest number of any city in Texas.
Access to Healthcare
In 2021, City Council adopted a resolution to spend federal economic recovery funds, American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), towards establishing a Health and Wellness Center at Colony Park in partnership with Central Health. This facility is slated to break ground in FY23.
Challenges
The neighborhood and urban built environment, access to health care, social and community connections, access to quality education, and economic stability are key factors (known as the social determinants of health) that impact an individual’s ability to achieve better health and quality of life. The 2022 Austin/Travis County Community Health Assessment (CHA) confirms sustained deficiencies in one or more of these factors among populations with existing health disparities.
Austin is generally considered a healthy city. However, there are dramatic health disparities among communities of color, low-income residents, older adults, individuals with physical and developmental disabilities, individuals identifying as LGBTQ2IA+, those experiencing poor mental health, individuals experiencing homelessness, recent immigrants, refugees, and undocumented residents. These disparities result from long-term racial and economic inequities and the consequence of historical, racist land-use decisions codified in the 1928 Master Plan.
Resident feedback from the 2022 CHA confirmed Austin’s continued growth and increased economic prosperity is only being realized by some Austinites. In 2019, the median household income in Travis County was $80,726, a 14.6% increase since 2015. The median household income for White households was 2.2 times greater than the household income for Black/African American households and 2.3 times greater than the household income for Hispanic/Latino households in 2019. An estimated one-quarter (25.0%) of LGBTQIA+ survey respondents reported having an annual income of less than $24,000. In comparison, 13.6% of Travis County children lived in poverty. According to the CHA, the high and rising cost of housing disproportionately affects low-income residents, residents of color, older adults, persons with disabilities, and displaced residents from urban to rural areas.
As individuals and families move farther from the center city, seeking to maintain or improve their quality of life due to the rising cost of living in Austin, they face diminished access to important health care and health-related services, safe transportation infrastructure, mobility options, and quality grocery stores. Additionally, household income is a key factor in health decisions from purchasing healthy foods, taking time off to recover from illness, filling prescriptions, securing preventative care, and the ability to care for other family members.
While the City of Austin does not have control over all of these factors, it does have a significant role to play through direct investment and through convening community and organizational partners to impact desired outcomes.
Program Champion:
Cassandra DeLeon
Austin Public Health
Economic Development
Housing and Planning
Office of Sustainability
Parks and Recreation
Austin Transportation