Environmental Nutrition and Activity Community Tool: Promoting Health Equity through Improved Food and Physical Activity Environments

Local public health leaders increasingly recognize the importance of moving beyond categorical funding and a disease-by-disease approach towards environmental changes that address issues fundamental to community health and chronic disease prevention. In low-income communities, funds for such efforts are always limited, however, resources are particularly scarce in the current economic climate. This reality makes primary prevention strategies to create healthy communities all the more important, because investments in the built environment have the capacity to prevent myriad chronic diseases.

To that end, ENACT is an online assessment and implementation tool which offers an array of achievable actions for improving food and activity environments in seven sectors including: communities, schools, preschool sites, after school programs, workplace environments, health care, and government. Developed by Prevention Institute, ENACT allows community leaders in under-resourced areas to maximize limited funds by prioritizing strategies which hold the greatest promise for improving food and activity environments.

This presentation will introduce people to ENACT and provide instruction on how local leaders can utilize the tool to assess, prioritize, and implement policy strategies in their communities. Additionally, the presentation will emphasize some of the most promising food and activity strategies and highlight several relevant success stories and model policies included in ENACT and its companion tool, the ENACT Local Policy Database.