Cargo Atlanta Citywide Freight Study

The Center for Quality Growth and Regional Development conducted an HIA, funded by a grant from the Health Impact Project, to inform the Cargo Atlanta Citywide Freight Study, which developed policies to facilitate efficient freight movement in and around the city. The HIA examined the potential health implications of various policies, including diesel emissions standards, traffic patterns, and employment, which can affect respiratory and cardiovascular disease, injury rates, and general health.

Under the same grant, the center collaborated with the Atlanta Regional Commission to establish a statewide framework for factoring health considerations into freight planning, with an emphasis on disproportionate impacts on low-income communities and people of color. To encourage future use of the framework in public decision-making about freight, the center provided technical assistance to university, government, and nonprofit entities and piloted the framework in this HIA and a second one that it conducted on the Coastal Region Metropolitan Planning Organization Freight Transportation Plan.