Northern Arizona Healthfields Community Partnership

What to know

The goal of this Arizona network was to improve access to healthcare and healthy food in federal “medically underserved” areas to promote safe land reuse throughout AZ for many widespread hazardous sites.

Person touring a land reuse site in Navajo Nation (Lloyd DeGrane, 2019)

Northern Arizona Healthfields Community Partnership

Partnership: This network of Arizona individuals, agencies, and nonprofits is dedicated to creating healthy, livable spaces for at-risk communities.

Goal: To improve access to healthcare and healthy food in federal "medically underserved" areas to promote safe land reuse throughout AZ for many widespread hazardous sites

Community and population:

5 community areas of northern Arizona: Cities of Flagstaff, Winslow, and Holbrook; counties of Navajo and Coconino all below state poverty level. Navajo County has the highest poverty, at 38.5% below poverty level

Largest minority groups: American Indian/Alaska Native and Hispanic/Latino

Percentage of persons under 65 without health insurance:9.7% to 17.3%

Environmental concerns‎

Brownfields and other types of potentially hazardous sites throughout rural and urban areas


Many brownfields and land reuse sites with petroleum contamination, which must be removed to reuse the sites
Potential for many brownfields sites to be cleaned up and reused as playlots, corner stores, and agriculture/community gardens

Health concerns‎

Federal medically underserved areas (MUAs) in majority of state and large regional areas with medically underserved populations (MUPs)

BROWN assistance and collaboration

  • Funding options and resources related to food (food deserts, healthy food access, community food markets)
  • ATSDR soilSHOP
  • $200,000 in EPA funding awarded to Phoenix, resulting in 42 brownfield site assessments
  • $130,000 ATSDR Community Health and Land Reuse funding awarded to ADHS for health assessments and education at 42 sites
  • $95,000 Robert Wood Johnson Foundation funding awarded to AHI stakeholder to expand AHI