New Indy Health District aims to make five historic neighborhoods healthier

Indiana University Health’s new $4.3 billion downtown hospital campus stretches 44 acres, an imposing swath of land from 16th Street south to 12th Street and from Capitol Avenue west to Interstate 65.

But that’s just a relatively small outline compared to what lies around it: 1,500 acres of five historic neighborhoods where residents score low in lifespan and high in chronic diseases such as diabetes and kidney disease.

And that’s the territory that Dennis Murphy, CEO of IU Health, has had on his mind lately.

“As I have told our IU Health team from Day One, and I try to repeat it as often as possible: If we only build a great hospital, we will have failed,” Murphy told a crowd of several hundred people Monday morning gathered under a tent canopy near Meridian and West 22^nd streets.

“Our goal is ambitious,” he said. “It is to make the new academic medical campus an active, engaged, supportive part of a vibrant, prosperous, multicultural, multigenerational neighborhood where we all live and work in harmony, where all children have an equal shot at living as long or longer than our nation’s highest life expectancies.”

IU Health is joining forces with other anchor institutions on the northern edge of downtown—including The Children’s Museum, Ivy Tech Community College and Citizens Energy Group—to form what they are calling the Indy Health District.

The leaders gathered with representatives of five neighborhood associations and city leaders to kick off the health district’s ceremonial launch.

The Indy Health District’s mission is to create healthier communities on the near-north side of Indianapolis by addressing health and socioeconomic disparities. The health district stretches from the northern end of downtown to Crown Hill Cemetery. It includes several commercial and industrial zones along with the historic neighborhoods of Crown Hill, Highland Vicinity, Historic Flanner House Homes, Meridian Highland and Ransom Place.

The health district was created in response to census data that showed that residents within its boundaries have a much lower life expectancy–10 to 26 years, depending on the census tract—than other parts of the Indianapolis metropolitan area.

The not-for-profit health district will be led by Board President Tory Castor, a senior vice president at IU Health, and Executive Director  Jamal Smith, who has served as executive director of government affairs and strategic partnerships at IU Health.

“This initiative is not about delivering services to the community,” Castor said. “It is about co- creating solutions with the residents who know their needs best. We are committed to ensuring that the district’s growth is community driven, and the voices of residents at the center of every decision.”

Smith said the district’s launch comes after years of study and reports, because there is no “cut and paste” solution to neighborhood health.

“This district represents something extraordinary,” Smith said. “ It’s not just a lofty vision or distant goal. It’s about execution, and we are here to make good on the data, the requests and the recommendations that the community has shared with us for years.”

The Indy Health District has numerous goals to making living a healthier prospect in the future. That includes creating dense, walkable communities that connect with housing and transit; encouraging an environment that fosters active and healthy lifestyles; and promoting programs that generate employment and “wealth-building opportunities.”

Some neighborhood leaders said they were excited by the Indy Health District’s goals and collaboration.

“The staggering statistic of a 17-year life expectancy reduction of the residents of Crown Hill [neighborhood] was just too much for me to bear, and I was just elated when this partnership developed,” said Danita Hoskin, president of the Crown Hill Neighborhood Association.

Indianapolis Deputy Mayor Judith Thomas said the city is only as healthy as its residents, and the neighborhood leaders and residents “are the experts” when it comes to their needs and how the city can address them.

“That is why the city is committed to joining these wonderful neighborhoods and anchor institutions in their support of the Indy Health District,” she said.