July 2006
Healthy communities crusader
and adjunct professor
Richard Jackson comes to UC
Berkeley and COEH by way of Sacramento,
where he recently served as state
public health officer in the California Department
of Health Services. Jackson said
he left his state post in 2005 frustrated by
the “dramatic mismatch” between the
position’s responsibilities and authority.
“One minute we were dealing with
West Nile virus, the next perchlorate in
water, then a flu vaccine shortage…and
everyone had a stake in the outcome,”
said Jackson. “My ability to weigh evidence
and argue for what I thought was
right in public was nearly always impeded.”
Prior to his stint in Sacramento,
Jackson spent ten years at the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention, where
he was director of the National Center for
Environmental Health and later senior
advisor to the director. He oversaw major
increases in the NCEH budget and led efforts
for a national chemical bio-monitoring
program.
But over time, said Jackson, he became
convinced that the built environment—
that is, the physical layout and
design of towns and cities—was at the
core of many environmental health problems,
from asthma, to cancer, to climate
related disasters.
“Public health walked away from urban
planning and design about fifty years
ago, thinking everything’s better now
that we’re all in cars,” he explained. But
Jackson said he was one of the first public
health leaders to point out that communities
designed for cars were leaving
human needs—like safety, security, and
clean air and water—in the lurch.
For communities to safeguard health,
Jackson argues, they need safe pedestrian
passageways and bike lanes, schools and
shops within walking distance of homes,
places for neighbors to interact, and gathering
points for times of crisis. They need
to be cohesive, dense, tranquil, beautiful
and resilient. They also need to become
what Jackson calls “places of the heart”—
a concept that’s difficult to define, but that
refers to the sense of comfort, security,inspiration and support a
well-designed city or town
provides.
Jackson argues that architects
and city planners
can do as much to protect
public health as doctors
can—an idea that was considered “off the charts” as
little as five years ago. But
the notion that community
design influences human
physical and emotional
health is rapidly becoming
conventional wisdom. As
evidence, Jackson points
out that he’s the first pediatrician
to become an American
Institute of Architects
board member.
Exploring the built environment’s
effects on health
is now Jackson’s academic
pursuit. He has co-authored
a book on the topic, Urban
Sprawl and Public Health. He’s brainstorming
ideas for county, state and national
legislation to promote healthy cities. He’s
also teaching a new course, the Built Environment
and Public Health, at Berkeley’s
School of Public Health and working hard
to shape the curriculum into a product he
can share with other faculty and schools.
Jackson said he had many reasons
for entering academia following his career
in government service. He describes
his Cal roots as “long and deep.” He is
a UCSF-trained physician who worked
as an epidemiologist for the California
Health Department on Berkeley Way for
15 years. He earned his MPH in epidemiology
at the School of Public Health
in 1979; his youngest son is currently a
Berkeley undergraduate; and his wife
and many other family members are also
Berkeley alums.
His Berkeley post is giving him time
to concentrate on teaching, lecturing and
writing across disciplines. “I don’t want
to spend time adding another snowball to
the Himalayan mountain of knowledge”
at the university, said Jackson. “My ambition
is to see that knowledge applied to
make lasting change.”
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Source: COEH Bridges
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