Building Local Public Health Capacity to Improve Food and Physical Activity Environments: Lessons from California

Purpose: To share the strategies developed through three initiatives funded by The California Endowment: the Healthy Eating Active Communities (HEAC) Program, the Central California Regional Obesity Prevention (CCROPP) program, which were designed to improve access to healthy foods and physical activity opportunities in 12 California communities through policy and environmental change; and the Public Health Department Mini-grant Program, designed to support planning in 11 local health departments to build their capacity to prevent chronic disease, using obesity prevention as the focus.

Methods: Through these initiatives, the Partnership for the Public's Health (PPH) worked closely with health departments to identify the core capacities most important to increase effectiveness in changing food and physical activity environments, linking this to chronic disease prevention, and then developed a strategy to assist individual health departments assess their capacities, prioritize areas for improvement, and develop plans to build on capacity areas.

Findings: Promising developments in health departments are occurring where leadership at the program and organizational levels embrace environmental approaches, and where they are supported by political and administrative officials. PPH identified seven core capacity areas key to effectively working with communities to change food and physical activity environments: Leadership, Financing, Workforce, Organizational Structure, Communications, Data, and relationships with organizations and communities. To be effective in this work, new roles and capacities need to be developed in each of these areas. This session will highlight the successful strategies, and challenges encountered by health departments in California working to build their capacity to prevent chronic disease.