title: Estimating the costs and benefits of providing free public transit passes to students in Los Angeles County: lessons learned in applying a health lens to decision-making.
abstract: In spite of increased focus by public health to engage and work with non-health sector partners to improve the health of the general as well as special populations, only a paucity of studies have described and disseminated emerging lessons and promising practices that can be used to undertake this work. This article describes the process used to conduct a Health Impact Assessment of a proposal to provide free public transportation passes to students in Los Angeles County. This illustrative case example describes opportunities and challenges encountered in working with an array of cross-sector partners and highlights four important lessons learned: (1) the benefits and challenges associated with broad conceptualization of public issues; (2) the need for more comprehensive, longitudinal data systems and dynamic simulation models to inform decision-making; (3) the importance of having a comprehensive policy assessment strategy that considers health impacts as well as costs and feasibility; and (4) the need for additional efforts to delineate the interconnectivity between health and other agency priorities. As public health advances cross-sector work in the community, further development of these priorities will help advance meaningful collaboration among all partners.
authors.affiliation: Division of Chronic Disease and Injury Prevention, Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, 3530 Wilshire Blvd, 8th floor, Los Angeles, CA 90010, USA. lgase@ph.lacounty.gov.
authors.forename: Lauren N
authors.initials: LN
authors.lastname: Gase
authors.affiliation: Division of Chronic Disease and Injury Prevention, Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, 3530 Wilshire Blvd, 8th floor, Los Angeles, CA 90010, USA. tkuo@ph.lacounty.gov.
authors.forename: Tony
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Kuo
authors.affiliation: Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, 313 N Figueroa St., Los Angeles, CA 90012, USA. jfieldin@ucla.edu.
authors.forename: Steven
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Teutsch
authors.affiliation: Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, 313 N Figueroa St., Los Angeles, CA 90012, USA. jfieldin@ucla.edu.
authors.forename: Jonathan E
authors.initials: JE
authors.lastname: Fielding
mesh_terms: D003362:Cost-Benefit Analysis; D003657:Decision Making; D004782:Environmental Health; D062489:Health Impact Assessment; D006304:Health Status; D015141:Los Angeles; D018986:Motor Vehicles; D011050:Policy Making; D011640:Public Policy; D013334:Students; D014186:Transportation / Q000191:economics*