Oral

Sodium reduction in community settings is an important public health issue because increased sodium intake is linked to high blood pressure, which increases the risk for stroke, coronary heart disease, heart failure, and renal disease. To address this issue, in 2010 the Centers for Disease Contro and Prevention funded the Sodium Reduction in Communities Program (SRCP) to increase sodium reduction policies, system and environmental change as well as build practiced based evidence in community settings. However, there is a dearth of practice-based evidence on effective sodium reduction strategies at the community level. Since commencement of the SRCP, several communities have implemented and begun evaluating community based strategies in various settings including restaurants. The proposed session will describe how SRCP communities use various evaluation methods to assess sodium reduction initiatives in restaurant settings. Three SRCP communities (Schenectady County, NY; New York City, NY; and Shasta County, CA) will describe their restaurant-based initiative, the evaluation method employed and findings from their evaluation. Additionally, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will share findings from a cross-site case study to highlight the importance of each community evaluation in its contribution in building practice-based evidence. This session will provide an overview of evaluation techniques of sodium reduction initiatives in restaurant settings and highlight the successes and challenges that communities have in implementing evaluation.

Session Objectives: Describe evaluation methods used to assess the availability and accessibility of low sodium options in restaurants Discuss examples of successful strategies, challenges and lessons learned from communities assessing restaurant changes List steps needed to build evaluation methods and to expand practice based evidence of sodium reduction strategies

CE Credits: Medical (CME), Health Education (CHES), Nursing (CNE), Public Health (CPH) , Masters Certified Health Education Specialist (MCHES)