Oral

Transforming communities into “healthy communities” requires concerted efforts from multiple sectors. In March, 2010 fifty communities across the United States were funded through CDC’s Communities Putting Prevention to Work (CPPW) program to work across sectors to address two of the leading preventable causes of death – obesity and tobacco use. Grantees include large cities, urban areas, small cities, rural areas, and tribes, that are collectively reaching over 50 million people – or one in six Americans. In order to achieve the policy, systems and environmental changes prescribed by this program, all 50 communities have worked with multiple sectors (i.e. government, education, planning, business, civic, faith-based) by developing Leadership Teams and engaging coalitions to make the changes required to truly improve health outcomes. The policies, systems, and environments around us, including our communities, worksites, transportation systems, food systems, schools, faith-based organizations, parks and health care settings shape the pattern of our lives and have a profound impact on our health. For example, the design and walkability of communities, the availability of low-cost fruits and vegetables, and the smoking policies in our workplaces have a direct impact on whether we walk to school, consume healthy foods and drinks, or are exposed to second-hand smoke. Changes in these systems and organizations are often governed by sectors outside of public health; and thus public health must reach beyond traditional health partners to make such changes a reality. Successful engagement of those sectors require public health professionals be able to explain, in terms meaningful for the sector, why changes in the sector’s policies and systems benefit the sector and align with the sector’s values while also having a beneficial impact on the health of the community. By leveraging the resources, knowledge, and expertise of multiple sectors, CPPW communities are working to make changes that may otherwise have not been possible. These relationships will extend beyond the funding period and help to implement and maintain “health in all" policies in the future. This session will discuss the rationale, importance, process, and outcomes of engaging multiple sectors in efforts to improve health through policy, systems and environmental change at the community level and highlight examples of the power of such relationships.

Session Objectives: 1. Explain the programmatic and scientific rationale for multi-sectoral engagement in efforts to build healthy communities through policy, systems and environmental change. 2. Describe multiple approaches to bridging the gap between sectors and engaging non-health sectors into community health initiatives. 3. Identify several successful policy, systems, and environmental change strategies being implemented in partnership with other sectors across the country at the community level.