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APHA Scientific Session and Event Listing

Recorded presentation

Leslie Mikkelsen, MPH, RD, Manal Aboelata, MS, Linda M. Shak, MSW, and Carol Chao, BA. Prevention Institute, 265 29th Street, Oakland, CA 94611, 510-444-7738, jasmine@preventioninstitute.org

Local policies, from zoning to joint use agreements, shape the food and activity environments that local residents encounter on a daily basis. Even with strong motivation, community residents may find it difficult to eat nutritious foods if their neighborhood lacks a supermarket, or is teeming with fast-food restaurants and advertising that promotes unhealthy products. Likewise, unsafe conditions and poor infrastructure for walking and biking hamper intentions to get active. Latinos, African-Americans, and Native Americans disproportionately live in poverty and low-income communities are most likely to lack the institutions, infrastructure and services essential for healthy living. Further, rates of eating and inactivity-related illnesses like diabetes, hypertension and heart disease are disproportionately high among people of color.

This presentation will highlight Prevention Institute's local policy database, designed as a tool to support the work of policymakers, advocates, and health professionals by providing concrete examples of policy ideas and actual policy language that reverse environmental barriers to proper nutrition and physical activity. This presentation will demonstrate how practitioners can use this database to identify local policies that have been proposed and/or adopted by cities, counties, and school boards throughout California and the nation.

The presentation will also identify community factors that create barriers to adopting healthy lifestyles and highlight promising policies that combat these barriers. Promising policy examples including land-use ordinances, complete streets, business incentives, finance measures and other strategies communities use to make healthy eating and activity a realistic option for all Americans, especially in neighborhoods experiencing severe health inequities.

Learning Objectives: At the conclusion of this session, the participant will be able to

• Describe a minimum of three reasons local policy is important.
• List more than three concrete examples of local policies to improve eating and activity environments
• Understand how to access Prevention Institute’s Local Policy Database to search for these examples.
• Articulate at least six community factors that influence health disparities

Keywords: Primary Prevention, Policy/Policy Development

Related Web page: www.preventioninstitute.org/sa/LocalPolicyTracking.html

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Any relevant financial relationships? No

Recorded presentation