The Healthy Community Design Toolkit is an ongoing project of PVPC and Massachusetts Department of Public Health. It provides guidance about healthy community design to Mass in Motion coordinators, municipal staff and board members and local advocates across Massachusetts.

Volume One of the Healthy Community Design Toolkit: Leveraging Positive Change provides a range of strategies for facilitating physical activity, reducing injury from motor vehicle crashes (especially for pedestrians and bicyclists), and reducing stormwater pollution. Strategies are targeted to Massachusetts governments and are keyed to typical plans, policies, regulations and programs in Massachusetts cities and towns. While many reports provide broad principles or goals for health community design, the Healthy Community Design Toolkit presents detailed strategies that can be adopted by Massachusetts municipalities. 

Volume One, was last updated in June of 2014. That update--which was funded by Massachusetts Association of Councils on Aging-- incorporated detailed recommendations for ensuring that the built environment meets the needs of older adults.

Volume Two was released in September of 2016. It focuses on municipal strategies to increase food access. See this page for more information: http://www.pvpc.org/projects/food-access​​

The Healthy Community Design Toolkit has been used in comprehensive regulatory reviews by at least three municipalities: Belchertown, Greenfield, and Weymouth. Results of those projects are here: http://www.pvpc.org/content/health-regulatory-reviews. It was also used in a more targeted project focused on healthy aging in Williamsburg, MA. 

PVPC is currently collaborating with the Massachusetts Department of Public Health to create a web version of the Healthy Community Design Toolkit.