Community-Engaged Approach for Health Equity: Enhancing an Active Environment in Michigan

During the COVID-19 pandemic, a decrease in physical activity (PA) has been reported in the United States and worldwide. Post-COVID-19, there is thus an urgent need for public health initiatives to revive individuals' interest and support for regular PA. The academic-community partnership between the EMU REACH team and community stakeholders co-designed and implemented an actionable alley activation. The objectives were to (1) Apply a community-based participatory approach for conducting walk audits, and (2) Evaluate the implementation and effectiveness of the alley activation.

The intervention took place in Hamtramck, Michigan and the project team engaged the stakeholders, performed environmental scans, assessed the setting, developed and implemented alley activation, and evaluated the process and outcomes of the intervention. The pilot was assessed using evaluation surveys in multiple languages and speed studies with traffic data.

Seventy-two residents and business owners helped implement the alley activation; 54 completed surveys offering feedback about the design and their experiences; and 1,669 residents saw immediate improvements in non-motorized connectivity. The evaluation surveys showed that respondents were positive about the project. For the traffic studies, vehicle speeds were reduced from an average of 28.3 MPH during conflicts with pedestrians to 23 MPH, and total conflicts were also reduced.

This quick-build project served as an initial effort for the future implementation of other place-making strategies. The bottom-up community-engaged process has the potential to create a safe, appropriately scaled space that will promote increased walkability in an inner city.