The Center, under the leadership of Dr. Terry Huang and Dr. Nasim Sabounchi, is a leading component of the New York consortium of HCS, in partnership with Columbia University School of Social Work and other local institutions, to undertake a community-engaged intervention to reduce opioid overdose and deaths across 16 counties in New York State.

In 2020, the Center for Systems and Community Design at the City University of New York Graduate School of Public Health and Health Policy launched a unique public health entrepreneurship platform known as Firefly Innovations - the first of its kind in the U.S.

Parks are a key feature of the built environment that foster community engagement, make communities vibrant, and support resident wellbeing. This study, built on our prior work on Design Thinking in Parks and the PARCS Study,  will test the impact on community-level health-related quality of life (HR-QoL) and mental health of a community-engaged, community-level intervention that aims to improve park-based health and social programming.