The Health and Infrastructure working groups began meeting in Fall 2023. As such, the information in the following sections represent early visioning of targets and indicators. These conversations are less complete than for the Equity and Environment working groups, which began the process more than a year earlier.
Use the colored icons below to select a goal to review initial brainstorming for southwestern Pennsylvania’s health targets. As with all visioning projects, these continue to be a work in progress.
Zero Hunger
Regional Targets
- Connect underserved neighborhoods with access to nutritious foods through programs like the WIC Program.
- Continue and expand the Fair Fares Pilot: free and reduced bus passes for SNAP users.
- Expand the $3 million Food Justice Fund to the county.
UNSDG Target 2.1: By 2030, end hunger and ensure access by all people, in particular the poor and people in vulnerable situations, including infants, to safe, nutritious and sufficient food all year round.
Regional Targets
- Work with Adagio Health regarding nutrition in schools.
UNSDG Target 2.2: By 2030, end all forms of malnutrition, including achieving, by 2025, the internationally agreed targets on stunting and wasting in children under 5 years of age, and address the nutritional needs of adolescent girls, pregnant and lactating women and older persons.
Regional Targets
- Prioritize businesses owned by persons of color and local vendors.
- Prioritize local procurement.
- Prioritize good food purchasing.
- Establish Good Food Purchasing policy.
UNSDG Target 2.3: By 2030, double the agricultural productivity and incomes of small-scale food producers, in particular women, indigenous peoples, family farmers, pastoralists and fishers, including through secure and equal access to land, other productive resources and inputs, knowledge, financial services, markets and opportunities for value addition and non-farm employment.
UNSDG Target 2.4: By 2030, ensure sustainable food production systems and implement resilient agricultural practices that increase productivity and production, that help maintain ecosystems, that strengthen capacity for adaptation to climate change, extreme weather, drought, flooding and other disasters and that progressively improve land and soil quality.
Regional Targets
- Working towards more activity on farm/other composting infrastructure.
UNSDG Target 2.a: Increase investment, including through enhanced international cooperation, in rural infrastructure, agricultural research and extension services, technology development and plant and livestock gene banks in order to enhance agricultural productive capacity in developing countries, in particular least developed countries.
Potential Indicators
- Number of food apartheid communities and number of residents who live in food apartheid communities
- Short term: Engagement with members in meetings and advocacy
- Intermediate: Passage of policies and change created of programs and new money
- Long-term: Persons impacted
- Visibility is impact for people in this network
- Increased access to fresh fruit and vegetables through redemption of food bucks
Good Health and Well-Being
Regional Targets
- Greater Pittsburgh Food Action Plan
UNSDG Target 3.1: By 2030, reduce the global maternal mortality ratio to less than 70 per 100,000 live births.
Known Datasets
Potential Indicators
- Hospital data for Maternal morbidity/mortality
- Hospitalization data that shows geographic distribution of different types of preventable hospitalizations. Use surveys and vital statistics.
Regional Targets
- Vaccine clinics; public data available through the COVID dashboard.
UNSDG Target 3.3: By 2030, end the epidemics of AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria and neglected tropical diseases and combat hepatitis, water-borne diseases and other communicable diseases.
Regional Targets
- Outreach to prevent opioid deaths (through Naloxone, public education and de-stigmatization campaigns).
UNSDG Target 3.5: Strengthen the prevention and treatment of substance abuse, including narcotic drug abuse and harmful use of alcohol.
Potential Indicators
- Substance data (Naloxone administration, emergency department visits, hospitalizations, treatment, concomitant conditions)
Regional Targets
- Free STD/STI Clinic; partner with AIDS Pittsburgh
UNSDG Target 3.7: By 2030, ensure universal access to sexual and reproductive health-care services, including for family planning, information and education, and the integration of reproductive health into national strategies and programmes.
Regional Targets
- Hold household chemical collection drives and education across SWPA.
- Educate residents on individual impact on water via pollution from pesticides, oil, etc.
- Education around lead service lines and ways to prevent lead toxicity.
UNSDG Target 3.9: By 2030, substantially reduce the number of deaths and illnesses from hazardous chemicals and air, water and soil pollution and contamination.
Known Datasets
- American Lung Association: State of the Air
- American Lung Association State of the Air Report 2020: Press Releases
Potential Indicators
- Partner with Carnegie Mellon University for pandemic preparedness and monitoring
- Advanced monitoring of air pollution and measuring health effects
Regional Targets
- Vaccine clinics; public data available through the COVID dashboard.
UNSDG Target 3.b: Support the research and development of vaccines and medicines for the communicable and non-communicable diseases that primarily affect developing countries, provide access to affordable essential medicines and vaccines, in accordance with the Doha Declaration on the TRIPS Agreement and Public Health, which affirms the right of developing countries to use to the full the provisions in the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights regarding flexibilities to protect public health, and, in particular, provide access to medicines for all.
Regional Targets
- Greater Pittsburgh Food Action Plan
UNSDG Target 3.c: Substantially increase health financing and the recruitment, development, training and retention of the health workforce in developing countries, especially in least developed countries and small island developing States.
Clean Water and Sanitation
Regional Targets
- We take a holistic approach to clear water.
- Measuring Up Report: Evaluation of water systems in Allegheny County. Part of the report focuses on affordability protections for consumers.
- Lead in testing the water of all children with EBLL.
UNSDG Target 6.1: By 2030, achieve universal and equitable access to safe and affordable drinking water for all.
Regional Targets
- Advocate for clear water and rivers through the Our Water Campaign. Impact our water and sewer systems.
- Research projects on water quality from the University of Pittsburgh.
UNSDG Target 6.3: By 2030, improve water quality by reducing pollution, eliminating dumping and minimizing release of hazardous chemicals and materials, halving the proportion of untreated wastewater and substantially increasing recycling and safe reuse globally.
Regional Targets
- Collaborations between local organizations and university research to enact change.
UNSDG Target 6.5: By 2030, implement integrated water resources management at all levels, including through transboundary cooperation as appropriate.
Regional Targets
- Steward the Nine Mile Run Ecosystem Restoration in Frick Park.
UNSDG Target 6.6: By 2020, protect and restore water-related ecosystems, including mountains, forests, wetlands, rivers, aquifers and lakes.
Regional Targets
- Engage and collaborate with local organizations to educate on relevant research at the University of Pittsburgh.
UNSDG Target 6.b: Support and strengthen the participation of local communities in improving water and sanitation management.
Potential Indicators
- Black participants come to the table and are further aware of these issues
- Monitoring of green infrastructure sites to quantify runoff reduction and water quality improvements
- Number of participants at watershed education workshops/students educated in schools
- Tallying of hazardous chemicals
- Zero water shutoffs in Allegheny County
- Flooding data (Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority, 311 complaints)
- PFA’s (PHAresearch, ACHD supported monitoring air for PFAs at landfills)
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