“Community collaborator, enthusiastic brainstormer, weeknight advocate, and devotee of down time.”
“Community collaborator, enthusiastic brainstormer, weeknight advocate, and devotee of down time.”
As Technical Assistance Director, Phil Bors oversees technical assistance and coaching services in collaboration with the Healthy Places by Design team to ensure cross-project learning. In addition to serving on the leadership team, Phil provides coaching, technical support, and consultation to coalitions across the country with a focus on health equity, community engagement, and systems change strategies. He joined our organization in 2002, helping develop the Community Action Model and establish Healthy Places by Design (then Active Living By Design) as a national leader advancing health through community design. Phil also provides consultation to other organizations that fund, develop, implement, and evaluate community health interventions, including John Rex Endowment, New York State Health Foundation, New York Community Trust, and Aetna Foundation. Phil has been an advisor, trainer, and consultant to various funders and initiatives, such as the CDC-funded Walkability Action Institute and Community of Practice, NC Move More Scholars Institute, and NC Department of Transportation’s WalkBikeNC state plan.
Prior to his time with Healthy Places by Design, Phil was the evaluation coordinator for the North Carolina Cardiovascular Health Program in the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services. His first career was as a certified paramedic and instructor in Florida, North Carolina, and Virginia. Phil earned a BS in biology from Virginia Tech and a master’s degree in health behavior and health education from the UNC-Chapel Hill Gillings School of Global Public Health.
Phil is active in his own community as an organizer of the Chatham Organizing for Racial Equity coalition. He previously served on the Chatham County Transportation Advisory Committee, Pittsboro Parks and Recreation Advisory Board, and worked with Chatham Soccer League to increase access to play for low-income kids in rural Chatham County, NC. He has also participated in various local planning, transportation, public school, and health promotion initiatives. He stays active by walking, playing soccer, bicycling, running, and playing with his friends and two daughters.
I spent my childhood in a community of suburban middle-class opportunity alongside many other families with children. We played ball, walked, and rode bikes all over town: to school, baseball practice, friends’ homes, and the store. My town had ample parks and bike paths. Schools were strong, within walking distance, and well maintained. We had access to healthy food in nearby grocery stores and backyard gardens. And we felt safe as we ventured out, even at night. This was an easy place in which to grow up as a healthy kid and become a young adult ready to face the world.
It wasn’t until years later, and after joining the Healthy Places by Design team, that I reflected back on the incredible privilege I had that was denied to so many people in other communities. Mine was a whites-only development, although I never realized it at the time. This form of post-WWII segregation was predetermined and enforced by federal housing policy, developers, and housing covenants. It took the 1969 federal Fair Housing Act and pressure from local social equity groups to undo this injustice and finally become a multi-racial and diverse community. While the transition did not happen overnight, it is a testament to the power of advocacy and policy to impact community wellbeing and fairness.
I’m now a lifelong student of equity, searching for the best role to advance justice in my work at Healthy Places by Design, in my local community, and with my family.