Oral

Health promotion is an public health function. This includes efforts to reduce behaviors with known health risks, such as smoking tobacco, and increasing behavior with known health benefits such as eating fresh produce and exercising. This session will begin with a description of a “smoke-free housing” model to reduce tobacco use and exposure to second hand smoke in multi-unit housing as is often present in cities. The next presentation will explore the readiness of rural communities for smoke-free policy development, and a presentation will focus on smoking reduction in Native American communities. Next, we will discuss the Healthy Eating, Active Communities Initiative, a childhood obesity prevention program funded by The California Endowment to support environmental changes to improve opportunities for children to eat healthy and be active. The initiative focuses on schools, after-school programs, neighborhood, marketing, and health care. Our next presentation will provide describe the federal Health & Human Services efforts to develop health objectives for 2020, and present the proposed framework, vision, overarching goals and mission for Healthy People 2020. Strategies for public health professionals at national, state and local levels who wish to participate in the development process will be described.

Session Objectives: At the end of this session, participants will be better able to: • Describe health and other benefits of implementing Smoke-free policies in multi-unit housing • Discuss the role of community leadership in readiness for smoke-free policy development in diverse communities • Understand the Healthy People 2020 development process