Oral

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA): Communities Putting Prevention to Work funding, announced in September 2009, provided an opportunity for resources to support policy and environmental change efforts to improve nutrition and physical activity and to reduce inequities. The California Endowment (TCE), Kaiser Permanente (KP), state and local government, community leaders and non-traditional partners, entered into an unprecedented public-private partnership to capitalize on this opportunity and maximize potential award for California communities.This partnership built on many years of investments by TCE and KP in California’s communities to prevent obesity by changing public policies, create healthier environments, and develop relationships among the public and private sectors. The partnership quickly and strategically capitalized on its assets, leveraged diverse resources and built a rapid response system to support development and submission of 14 large/urban and two small/rural county health departments’ applications for federal ARRA funds. With the Public Health Institute as intermediary and the CA Convergence as the coordination vehicle, the partnership developed multilevel communication channels, grant development contracts, technical assistance coordination, and connections within the CA Convergence community sites, to support local public health departments and communities. Short-term outcomes: formalized and established relationships at multiple levels of scale and across multiple sectors; shared public policy agenda and objectives locally and statewide; improved responsiveness for future funding opportunities; transparent communications systems and enhanced trust among partners; and strengthened health planning to address obesity prevention and health inequities through the social determinants of health. Presenters will discuss their engagement, return on investments, lessons learned and offer concrete steps for how others may replicate and develop public-private partnerships for rapid response to funding opportunities and to support longer-term strategic action. California’s current economic, political and social environment have led to increased splintering of, and competition for, scarce resources and the loss of investments, particularly to communities already experiencing inequities. This movement to change California’s situation by deepening private-public partnerships to build on assets, leverage resources and collectively strengthen investments in communities may also serve as a useful model for other states and communities.

Session Objectives: 1) Explain how to capitalize on emerging economic opportunities 2) Describe how to collectively activate and leverage multi-sectoral resources 3) Discuss how to shift parallel and sometimes competing efforts into a convergence around a shared policy platform and support of the health-equity focused healthy places movement

CE Credits: Medical (CME), Health Education (CHES), Nursing (CNE), Public Health (CPH)