Implementing Health in All Policies: Examples from California's Rural CA4Health Community Transformation Grant Funded Communities

How do we ensure that rural efforts in diverse strategic directions, such as reducing consumption of sugary beverages, increasing availability of smoke-free housing, creating safe routes to schools, and chronic disease self-management, break down siloes and harness each other’s networks, momentum, and reach? Utilizing a Health in All Policies approach is one way that rural communities are sustaining coordinated collaborative efforts that seek to improve the health of all people by incorporating health considerations into decision-making across sectors and policy areas. Outcomes in these communities have included discussions and actions related to the root causes of health inequities, increased engagement from community partners, and a renewed vision of how programmatic local health department efforts can impact the social determinants of health.  The presenter will describe the key elements of a Health in All Policies approach and share how this approach has been applied by a handful of rural CA4Health Community Transformation Grant sub-awardees, including Tulare, Monterey, and Merced Counties. CA4Health, the Public Health Institute's Community Transformation Grant, works with the counties in California whose population is less than 500,000 to implement local changes that will create healthier community environments. The presentation will include a discussion of the difference between implementing policy, system, and environmental change strategies by issue or sector and implementing those strategies through a Health in All Polices approach. Finally, the presenter will describe mechanisms available to rural communities to implement Health in All Policies.