Real Estate and Community Health (REACH) is a research project at North Carolina State University, that explores how to build a business case for private developer investment in community health. REACH seeks to integrate resources and expertise to create a holistic, mixed-methods business case to understand motivations, processes, and implementation mechanisms needed to develop practical strategies and create identifiable value based on promoting a culture of health and well-being within multifamily developments. The project is addressing questions such as:

(1) how and why developers might address health;

(2) criteria for decision-making processes;

(3) favored health strategies within projects;

(4) economic factors, including discussions with financial lenders; and

(5) considerations between different project types and locations based on local infrastructure and relevant housing and health policies.

The resulting business case hopes to inform municipal policies to encourage multifamily development projects that support creating a culture of health in communities.