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ABSTRACT
It is well established that place matters with respect to health and health outcomes. In studies of behavioral health, including violence, alcohol and other drug use, and mental health there is growing evidence that environmental risk is a strong predictor of behavior in highly disordered environments and may be a more salient predictor of high-risk behavior than individual-level risk factors. The field of health equity research has been defined as the study of the context where people live, work and play and experience health. Essential to the inquiry of health equity are understandings of how the environment shapes and influences opportunities for optimal (or sub-optimal) health as well as structural and policy interventions to address features of the built and social environment to promote behavioral health. Specific examples will be provided of innovative environmental assessment methods that offer the most resolute and policy-relevant approaches to characterizing the environment and environmental risk. In addition, recent examples from current policy-based research and implementation efforts to reduce alcohol outlet-density and expand behavioral health services in Baltimore City will be provided. This action-oriented research builds on recent advancements in the field of geographic information systems and offers promising new lines of research, service and advocacy in the field of health equity research.
Bio
Debra Furr-Holden, Ph.D.
 Dr. Debra Furr-Holden is a drug and alcohol dependence epidemiologist with expertise in prevention science, psychosocial measurement and behavioral health equity research and intervention. In the last decade her work has focused in large part on developing environmental strategies and structural interventions for violence, alcohol, tobacco and other drug (VATOD) prevention in high-risk urban settings. Dr. Furr-Holden’s research is grounded in the rubrics of epidemiology and psychometrics and consistent with principles and practices for understanding social determinants of health and health equity. She is the Director of the Drug and Alcohol Investigations, Violence and Environmental Studies Laboratory (The DIVE Studies Lab) at The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health (JHSPH), co-Director of the Johns Hopkins Center for the Prevention of Youth Violence, and faculty at the Hopkins Center for Health Disparities Solutions. Dr. Furr-Holden has recently accepted a position at the Michigan State University College of Human Medicine Public Health Division at the Flint, Michigan campus as a C.S. Endowed Mott Professor of Public Health.
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