Featured OPCE Authored Resources

Reframing the Obesity ConversationReframing the Obesity Conversation
How obesity is described, or framed, can affect whether a solution has popular or decision-maker support. Learn more about reframing the conversation.

 

View all OPCE Authored Resources »

All CHSC Related Resources

Included in the collection are informational materials and tools. To search by title, use the main search box located at the top of this page.

Number of results: 219

(Re)Building Downtown: A Guidebook for Revitalization

This guidebook provides municipal governments with tools for economic revitalization that incorporates walkability into downtown areas of business. It includes sections on walkability, public parks, and affordable housing.

2016 Food Policy Council Report

The Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future recently released the “2016 Food Policy Council Report,” which provides a summary of results from the 2016 Food Policy Council (FPC) survey. This report lists five active FPCs in New York State.

2017 County Health Rankings and Roadmaps

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the University of Wisconsin’s Population Health Institute released the eighth annual County Health Rankings. The annual rankings provide a snapshot of how health is influenced by where we live, learn, work, and play, and provide a starting point for change in communities

A Guide to Building Healthy Streets

A Guide to Building Healthy Streets can help you turn a Complete Streets policy into action! This resource discusses five key steps for effective Complete Streets implementation, highlighting the unique role public health staff can play during each step.

A Report and Recommendations by the Workgroup on Food Procurement Guidelines

This document provides a report and recommendations developed by the New York State Council on Food Policy workgroup for food procurement guidelines for New York State agencies. Guidelines refer to food purchased, provided, or made available, and requires that key nutrient levels either meet, or do not exceed, certain standards established as part of these guidelines.

Active Neighborhood Checklist 2.0

This 2 pages observational tool is designed to assess key street-level features of a neighborhood environment that are thought to be related to physical activity behavior. Data collected can be used to generate data to create community awareness or to focus and advocate for environmental improvements.

Arts, Culture and Transportation: A Creative Placemaking Field Scan

Arts, Culture and Transportation: A Creative Placemaking Field Scan is a rigorous national examination of creative placemaking in the transportation planning process. Released in partnership with ArtPlace America, this new resource identifies ways that transportation professionals can integrate artists to deliver transportation projects more smoothly, improve safety, and build community support.

BE Active: Connecting Routes + Destinations

CDC released BE Active: Connecting Routes + Destinations—resources that support the Community Guide’s recommendation to promote and increase physical activity in communities. State and local health departments, public health professionals, and community organizations working on ways to increase physical activity can use the Real World Examples, Implementation Resource Guide, and Visual Guide to guide their implementation process as they aim to build more activity-friendly communities.

Bicycling and Walking in the United States: 2016

This report provides a detailed picture of the status of biking and walking in the United States. There is a significant amount of national and state-level data, case studies of communities which have been able to increase access to walking and biking, and tips for implementation in diverse communities.

Building Healthier Communities: Integrating Public Health into Planning

Building Healthier Communities: Integrating Public Health into Planning is a free online learning course for planning and health professionals. Designed to complement the American Planning Association’s Planners4Health curriculum, the course outlines what planners and public health professionals need to know and how they can connect their work.

Building the business case for produce at convenience stores

This overview is divided into 7 sections:
1. Background: An overview of the convenience
store industry, produce sales and snacking trends
2. Opportunity: A look at demand, products and
consumer trends that can affect sales success
3. Consumer insights: A closer look at the customers
seeking out produce and how they shop in convenience
stores
4. Logistics and specifics: There are a number of
elements to consider in developing and executing
a successful produce program
5. Getting started: A primer for how to start a
program based on one retailer’s experience
6. Managing Fresh: An example of a fresh build-to
book and the methodology behind it
7. Next steps: There are other considerations to
be addressed

CDC CHANGE Tool

This CHANGE tool helps community teams (such as coalitions) develop their community action plan. This tool walks community team members through the assessment process and helps define and prioritize possible areas of improvement. Community-At-Large Sector, Community Institution/Organization Sector; Health Care Sector; School Sector; Work Site Sector

CDC Worksite Health Scorecard

This Health Scorecard, developed by the CDC, is a tool designed to help employers assess the extent to which they have implemented evidence-based health promotion interventions or strategies in their worksites to prevent heart disease, stroke, and related conditions such as hypertension, diabetes, and obesity.

Center for Healthy Food Access

The Food Trust, supported by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, recently announced the Center for Healthy Food Access launch. Its goals are to promote access to nutrition and affordable food for children nationwide, while catalyzing new ideas and sustaining recent progress around food access. Some initiative efforts include strengthening SNAP and WIC, improving school food and water quality, developing healthy food access venues in underserved areas, and working with businesses on healthy food marketing.

Child Nutrition Site Visit Guide

The Child Nutrition Programs benefit millions of low-income children each day, providing healthy food both in and out of school. These programs are public policy at its best, and that is why it is critically important for advocates to invite Members of Congress, as well as state and local elected officials, to visit Child Nutrition Program sites. Seeing children engaged in activities and eating nutritious meals can move an elected official to become a champion for strengthening the programs. This fact sheet offers steps for organizing, planning and hosting a Child Nutrition site visit for Members of Congress, as well as state and local elected officials.

CHLI Assessment

Community Healthy Living Index (CHLI) contains assessments for six key community settings: afterschool child care sites, early childhood programs, neighborhoods, schools, work sites and the community at large. Each assessment contains questions about policies and practices that support healthy lifestyles. Each question provides a “best practice” or improvement idea for sites to implement

Community Food Security Assessment Toolkit

This report provides a toolkit of standardized measurement tools for assessing various aspects of community food security. It includes a general guide to community assessment and focused materials for examining six basic assessment components related to community food security. These include guides for profiling general community characteristics and community food resources as well as materials for assessing household food security, food resource accessibility, food availability and affordability, and community food production resources. Data collection tools include secondary data sources, focus group guides, and a food store survey instrument. It is designed for use by community-based nonprofit organizations and business groups, local government officials, private citizens, and community planners.

Community Health Media Center Resources

The Community Health Media Center (CHMC) provides free and low-cost advertisements and materials for use by health departments and nonprofit organizations. The advertisements and materials focus on the built environment, nutrition, physical activity, obesity, and other chronic diseases or conditions. The CHMC includes television, radio, print, outdoor (e.g., billboard, transit), and web advertisements; as well as infographics and support materials such as brochures, fact sheets, flyers, posters, postcards. Browse the collection by visiting the CHMC website and creating an account.

Comparison of Nutrition Guidelines for Prepared Food

Increasing access to healthier foods and beverages in public places is a fast-growing movement across the country. This resource provides comparisons of nutrition-based and food-based standards for prepared foods sold or served at catered meetings and events, cafeterias and cafes, concessions stands, university campuses, and other public and private food service settings. Also included is a comparison of beverage standards for food service settings.

Complete Street for North Country Communities- Advocacy Toolkit

This resource was developed by one of the CHSC grantees and is universally useful even though it was developed with small upstate communities in mind. It contains several 1-2 page checklist style street and sidewalk assessments as well as action planning tools.

Complete Streets

This website provides an overview of benefits of Complete Streets (CS), as well as villages/towns/cities with CS policies or resolutions, and design guidance

Complete Streets Complete Networks Rural Contexts

This guide is intended to help planners, engineers, and decision-makers understand the Complete Streets roadway design process, and how it can be applied in smaller communities. It is intended as a companion to Complete Streets, Complete Networks, A Manual for the Design of Active Transportation.

Complete Streets Local Policy Workbook

This workbook provides explanations of the various forms a Complete Streets (CS) policy may take and the elements of an ideal CS policy. This workbook is intended to be used during the development of a city or county CS policy.

Complete Streets Policy Equity and Public Transit Reports

As Complete Streets Policies are becoming increasingly popular researchers seek to understand how these provisions lead to equitable implementation and higher physical activity levels. These two latest reports from the Institute for Health Research and Policy at the University of Illinois at Chicago examine both the association between complete streets policies and public transit use and equity prioritization in policies.

Complete Streets: Changing Policy

Presentation, along with presenters notes, to facilitate a discussion of Complete Streets in one’s community. Includes background on what Complete Streets are and provides example policies

Complete Streets: Guide to Answering the Costs Question

This guide provides four overarching points to make in answering cost questions. The effectiveness of each depends upon the listener—some will resonate more with one audience than another. We give general guidance to the most appropriate audiences for each point, as well as general tips when discussing these topics in your community. We encourage you to use these examples as a starting point. Each point made below is illustrated in a companion PowerPoint slide. A thumbnail image of the slide and its corresponding slide number appear next to the text examples. You should not use the whole PowerPoint presentation to make your case locally. Instead, select the slides that are appropriate to your audience and situation and augment those slides with local facts and stories.

Complete Streets: Making them Happen!

This webinar shows how to tailor Complete Streets talking points, identify Complete Streets demonstration projects, and develop strategies to measure progress implementing Complete Streets projects.

Convenience Stores and the “Fresh” Opportunity

Convenience Stores and the “Fresh” Opportunity explores the fresh and less processed food being offered by a cross section of convenience stores, including consumer perceptions of independent and chain-store meals and snacks. Matched with data on snacks, Millennials and female demographics, the white paper provides insights and recommendations on convenience-store shopping experiences, merchandising, store designs and fresh categories.

Corner Stores

This tool offers concerned residents, policymakers, business leaders, and advocates ideas and strategies for improving small stores in underserved communities. It provides examples of challenges faced by residents wishing to improve the quality of local corner stores and identifies strategies used to overcome many of these challenges.

Designing and Evaluation for a Complete Streets Initiative

The value of a complete streets initiative can be demonstrated through program evaluation. Creating a systematic and meaningful evaluation approach requires a step by step process. The purpose of this webinar is to provide participants with the skills to plan and execute an evaluation of a Complete Streets Public Health Intervention which addresses Prevention Agenda Performance Measures.

Developing a Healthy Beverage Vending Agreement

This fact sheet outlines key considerations for schools, including what to look for when soliciting a vendor, best practices to ensure a sound agreement, and ways for parents and other community members to get involved in the process.

Dietary Guidelines for Americans

The Dietary Guidelines reflect the current body of nutrition science and provide recommendations to help Americans make healthy food and beverage choices and serve as the foundation for vital nutrition policies and programs across the United States. The Dietary Guidelines for Americans is the Nation’s go-to source for nutrition advice for public health professionals and is published every 5 years.

Dig, Eat, & Be Healthy: A Guide to Growing Food on Public Property

Growing food on public property not only yields a diverse crop of fresh, healthy foods, but also promotes civic participation, public safety, food literacy, jobs skills, and urban greening. This guide provides users with the tools needed to access public land for growing fresh, healthy foods for the community.

Eastern Highlands Health District Toolkit

In 2015, in partnership with the Connecticut Chapter of the American Planning Association (CCAPA), EHHD was awarded a Plan4Health grant by the American Planning Association (APA) and the American Public Health Association (APHA). The focus of this grant is to support EHHD/CCAPA efforts to increase physical activity and access to healthy foods in the region’s towns by helping them link their planning and public health programs with a focus on healthier communities. This toolkit is designed to support the EHHD region towns, as well as any other small, rural towns, in these efforts. The EHHD and its CHART Coalition are actively working to help their communities create places where residents will have more opportunities to be physically active, eat healthy foods, and have fun!

Economic Benefits of PA

The National Physical Activity Society created slides you can use to promote walk/bike-ability.

Elements of a Complete Streets Policy

Smart Growth America and the National Complete Streets Coalition have revamped the ideal elements of a Complete Streets Policy. The elements serve as a national model of best practices that can be implemented in nearly all types of Complete Streets policies at all levels of governance. For communities considering a Complete Streets policy, this resource serves as a model; for communities with an existing Complete Streets policy, this resource provides guidance on areas for improvements.

ENACT Local Policy Database

This policy database includes policies that have been enacted from a wide variety of states, jurisdictions, and topics. Users can refine their serach by filtering based on cities, counties, school districts, regional bodies, or special districts. The intended use is to provide sample policy language for jurisdictions looking to enact their own policies.

Engaging Students with Disabilities in Safe Routes to School

A new infobrief provides information for Safe Routes to School staff, volunteers, or program leaders on how to plan and develop a program that considers and meets the needs of students with disabilities.

This infobrief describes the benefits of Safe Routes to School for students with disabilities, strategies for including students with disabilities within the six E’s of Safe Routes to School, important components of inclusive Safe Routes to School programming, considerations for students with different kinds of disabilities, and ways to partner and build your resources.”

Fair Play Fact Sheet

This fact sheet provides an introduction to shared use as a strategy for reducing inequities in recreational access, and provides considerations that may be of particular concern in low-income communities.

Farmers Market Manager Training Manual

The purpose of this manual is to provide market managers with the training and the tools they need to be effective market mangers and to overcome the many obstacles and challenges to prevent market failure

Fast Facts

The documents found at the links below provide facts from up-to-date studies and “fast facts” written in consumer friendly language. To reduce review time, materials developed using facts from these documents exactly as they are written will not need additional science review, which will reduce the overall product review time.

Fighting for Equitable Transportation Fact Sheet

The Safe Routes to School National Partnership recently published a fact sheet, Fighting for Equitable Transportation: Why it Matters, that explores why safe and convenient walking and biking matter for low-income communities and communities of color. This fact sheet is a companion resource to At the Intersection of Active Transportation and Equity: Joining Forces to Make Communities Healthier and Fairer.

Financial Implications of Healthy Vending

Many vendors have found that revenue is unaffected by implementing healthy vending, and some vendors have experienced an increase in sales when they increased healthier options. The transition can be coupled with nutrition education, taste tests, promotions, and changes to pricing to support healthy choices

Food and Beverage Toolkit Resources

This toolkit is designed for anyone involved with workplace food and beverages, from the office vending machine to an off-site special event involving catering. The goal is to provide practical, actionable suggestions that are easy to understand and apply. Provides guidance for leadership and management, meetings and events, vending machines, caterers and food vendors, and by food category.

Food Business Pathways

White paper on an NYC program to assist public housing residents with small business ownership.

Food Hub Business Assessment Toolkit

“Wholesome Wave’s Food Hub Business Assessment Toolkit provides you with the tools to evaluate a food hub business’ readiness for investment. The Toolkit provides a framework for assessing the strengths and weaknesses of food hubs along with available data in the areas of business model and strategy, impact potential, market overview, marketing and sales, operations, organization and management, risk mitigation, technology and systems, and finance.
“

Food Hubs

Learn more about Food Hubs, including challenges, strategies, resources, and success.

Food Market Measures Toolkit

This toolkit provides an overview of food market measures for the store environment, consumers, and store owners. It helps researchers and practitioners to select appropriate measurement tools for healthy retail work by compiling, categorizing, and describing relevant measurement tools in a user-friendly way.

Food Service Guidelines: Supporting Healthy Worksites Toolkit

OPCE developed a document with practical guidance and resources to use when developing, adopting, implementing, and evaluating food service guidelines. These guidelines are intended to help CHSC coordinators consider the range of settings where they can influence healthy food options, and to showcase useful resources and tools. Champions within an organization can also use these guidelines to improve their worksite nutritional environments.

Food Services Guidelines: Case Studies from States and Communities

This CDC report highlights five case studies of food and beverage guidelines developed to improve the food environment. Each case study includes goals and objectives, development and use of food service guidelines, onoing monitoring, and lessons learned. This report will share some insight about the process of developing and implementing food service guidelines that CDC hopes will help foster efforts of others.

Freshest Cargo: Mobile Farmers’ Market

FRESHEST CARGO is a farmers’ market on wheels, bringing fresh, California-grown fruits and vegetables to neighborhoods all over the San Francisco Bay Area.

Get Rolling With a Bike Train Program

This handout covers frequently asked questions for starting a bike train program. This resource is great for school staff and principals!

With a bike train, a group of students bike to school together, accompanied by adults who make sure students stay safe and have fun. A bike train is a fun and easy way for kids to
safely get physical activity on the way to or from school and a great way for students who live too far to conveniently walk to participate in Safe Routes to School.

Green for Greens: Finding Public Funding for Healthy Food Retail

ChangeLab Solution’s Green for Greens guide discusses strategies to implement healthy food retail in situations where financing may be a barrier. This guide is divided into two sections. The first provides a general overview of economic development and ideas for how to approach economic development agencies with healthy food retail proposals. The second provides a comprehensive overview of local, state, and federal economic development programs that have been or could be used for healthy food retail projects.

Guide to Developing A Community Farmers Market

This Guide to Developing a Community Farmers Market can help market organizers to create a strong foundation for a successful, long term farmers market that will be a community asset and a valuable resource for both consumers and farmers. Tools include sample surveys for consumers, farmers and local businesses, a market site evaluation, job description, sample rules, sample market application, and other resources in NY State.

Health Disparities Data Widget

Healthy People 2020’s data widget provides an easy way to find health disparities data related to the Healthy People 2020 objectives for the Leading Health Indicators (LHIs). The widget provides charts and graphs of disparities data that can be viewed by disparity type—including disability, education, income, location, race and ethnicity, and sex.

Health Equity and Obesity Toolkit

The purpose of the Health Equity Toolkit is to increase the capacity of state health departments and their partners to work with and through communities to implement effective responses to obesity in populations that are facing health disparities. The Toolkit provides a six-step process for planning, implementing, and evaluating a program to address obesity disparities.

Health on the Shelf

This toolkit describes how to create a strong healthy small food retailer certification program that requires participating stores to increase the variety of healthy foods they sell, reduce the offerings of unhealthy foods, and proactively market healthy options with help from a sponsoring agency or organization. It provides step-by-step instructions for developing a certification program, with numerous ideas and examples from existing programs.

Healthier Food and Beverage Product Calculator

The Partnership for a Healthier America and the National Association of Convenience Stores launched a healthier product calculator. This healthier product calculator allows retailers, manufacturers and distributors to easily identify packaged foods and beverages that meet PHA’s Healthier Food and Beverage Product Criteria.

Healthier Food Choices for Public Places

This website has information related to food and nutrition guidelines for government, worksites, hospitals, and organizations including links to fact sheets/background, model polices, and toolkits.

Healthier Food Retail: An Action Guide for Public Health Practitioners

The purpose of the Action Guide for Public Health Practitioners is to provide guidance for public health practitioners on how to develop, implement, and partner on initiatives and activities around food retail in order to improve access, availability, and affordability of healthier foods and beverages. The guide is from the CDC’s Division of Nutrition, Physical Activity and Obesity (DNPAO). With this guide, public health practitioners can begin work in healthier food retail or enhance work on existing healthier food retail activities with new ideas and practical tools and tips. This Action Guide will help practitioners consider the landscape of initiative options and engage in partnerships to support healthier food retail initiatives, assess the food retail environment, and evaluate healthier food retail initiatives.

Healthiest Practice Open Streets

This website provides a toolkit for implementing Healthiest Practice Open Streets. ‘Open Streets’ are community-based programs that temporarily open selected streets to people, by closing them to cars. By doing this the streets become places where people of all ages, abilities, and backgrounds can come out and improve their health.

Healthy Community Design and Access to Healthy Food Legislation Database

This database of the National Conference of State Legislatures is a valuable tool for anyone interested in state-level legislation related to active living and healthy eating. Users can search by state, topic area(s), year, bill type, bill status, and/or bill number. The website also has a text search feature. This database can be used to develop local policy language and check that local policies are in line with state policies.

Healthy Corner Store Initiative

The Food Trust created the Healthy Corner Store Initiative to support corner store owners committed to increasing the healthy food inventory in their stores and to encourage customers to make healthier choices. This report discusses the Healthy Corner Store Initiative model, programs, lessons learned, and evaluation.

Healthy Food Access Portal

This website offers key strategies, organizations, resources, and success stories in the areas of grocery stores, co-ops, corner stores, farmers’ markets, food hubs, alternative markets, and healthy food marketing.

Healthy Food and Small Stores

This report identify ways to overcome distribution challenges in the small food retail environment in ways that are profitable for businesses and provide better access to healthy food in stores.

Healthy Food Donation Checklist

This is a checklist of healthy items that food banks can use to show the kinds of healthy foods they are seeking in donations

Healthy Food in Health Care

Encourage your local hospitals to increase access to healthy foods using the Healthy Food in Health Care Pledge.

Healthy Food Retail: An Action Guide for Public Health Practitioners

This chapter, part of the larger Healthy Food Retail: An Action Guide for Public Health Practitioners, focuses on Distribution. The chapter discusses the public health role in sourcing and distributing healthier foods for retail venues, including local or regional foods.

Healthy Heart Program Hospital Toolkit

This toolkit includes tools and resources for improving the health environment of hospitals. It includes recommendations and implementation guides for vending machines, patient meals, and cafeterias.

Healthy Kids, Healthy Communities: School and Local Government Collaborations

The Local Government Commission and the Cities, Counties, and Schools Partnership produced this fact sheet in April 2007 showing how collaborative efforts between government officials and schools can join forces to reduce childhood obesity. It provides research resources and eight specific examples of policies (some of which are safe routes to schools initiatives), join use agreement, community garden programs, and fast food zoning policies.

Healthy Retail Playbook

CHSC Grantees can use this Healthy Retail Playbook to develop a comprehensive approach to improving the retail environment. These innovative resources – a series of conversation starters, a playbook, and a collaboration workbook – can help government agencies collaborate to create a retail environment where it?s easier to make healthy choices than unhealthy ones.

Healthy Retail: A Set of Tools for Policy and Partnership

This resource and companion policy poster offer innovative strategies in tobacco control, nutrition, and excessive alcohol use prevention in order to create a retail environment where it is easier to make healthy choices then unhealthy ones.

Healthy Staff Meeting

Healthy schools need healthy role models. What’s a better way to start than to host a healthy staff meeting? Adding physical activity breaks or nutritious snacks can help staff stay attentive during meetings, get excited about school wellness, and help reinforce your efforts to become a healthy school. Plus, if students see staff practicing what they preach, they are more likely to want to practice those healthy behaviors themselves. Here are a few ideas to make your next school staff meeting a little bit healthier:

Healthy Vending Guide

This document provides a guide to help organizations make healthy vending options available and attractive to children, youth, and adults. It includes healthy vending guidelines for food and beverage products, sample policies to support and sustain healthy vending, and marketing strategies to promote healthy options.

How to Access and Use Data for Planning Complete Streets Projects

Complete streets policies can create safer and smarter multi-modal environments for all pedestrians, bicyclists, and transit users of all ages and abilities. The right kind of data can be an essential element to planning, implementing, and evaluating projects. This one-hour webinar will provide information on how to access and use national, state, county, and street-level data on motor vehicle traffic, bicycle, and pedestrian use, injuries, hospitalizations, and fatalities.

How to Create and Implement Healthy General Plans

This toolkit provides a logical progression of steps to make communities more walkeable/bikeable, from engaging stakeholders to policy implementation. It includes strategies to build relationships with public officials and community members, community assessment, instructions on how to write a plan including sample policy language, tools to select which policies might be most successful, and research on the built environment and health outcomes.

How to Turn a Stroad into a Street (or a Road)

“Our national transportation conversation has us obsessing over finding more money to continue to do the same thing. This is only making us poorer.

Instead, we need to focus on finding ways to make better use of our existing investments. This means we need to spend our energy converting our most expensive, least productive and most dangerous transportation investment — our stroads — into either wealth-producing streets (to create a place) or highly productive roads (to connect productive places). The website shows you how to do just that.”

Implementing Complete Streets Projects Using New and Existing Funding

Complete streets policies create safer and smarter multi-modal transportation networks for all pedestrians, bicyclists, and transit users of all ages and abilities. New and existing funding sources can be accessed to help communities make their complete streets projects become a reality. Learn how to take concrete steps that build momentum and a track record, while simultaneously helping the community become more competitive for state and federal funding opportunities. In New York, there are good examples of rural, suburban and urban municipalities that have successfully identified and acted on low-cost solutions to advance their complete streets policies and projects. For larger infrastructure projects, communities have a variety of local, state and federal funding options. Communities should be careful to consider the costs and benefits of these funding options, including the costs of grant-writing, the importance of community buy-in and the difficulties of administering a federal-aid project.

Implementing Complete Streets Public Awareness Campaigns

One of the goals of the NYS Prevention Agenda is to promote attention to the health implications of policies and actions that occur outside of the health sector, including transportation and public safety. Complete streets policies create safer and smarter multi-modal transportation networks for all pedestrians, bicyclists, and transit users of all ages and abilities. Complete streets policies are ultimately geared towards promoting healthy lifestyles. Learn how two New York communities have used public awareness campaigns to encourage their residents to use walking and biking facilities or trail networks that have been established as a result of complete streets projects.

Implementing Healthier Food Service Guidelines in Hospital and Federal Worksite Cafeterias

To better understand the facilitators and barriers of implementing healthy food service guidelines, CDC’s Division of Nutrition, Physical Activity, and Obesity (DNPAO) supported a project by the North Carolina Institute of Public Health (NCIPH) to examine five hospitals and four federal worksite food service operators across the country. The findings are published in the Journal of Human Nutrition and Dietetics and describe the experiences of food service operators in implementing healthy food service guidelines and identifies implementation facilitators and barriers. NCIPH conducted additional follow-up with food service operators that were most successful in implementing the food service guidelines and published five Success Stories at the following websites that highlight the implementation challenges and solutions and synthesized keys to success for each individual hospital or federal worksite food service operator.

Improving Mobility Access through Complete Streets and Mobility Management

In this brief, the National Center for Mobility Management takes a look at mobility management and Complete Streets concepts and then identifies examples of communities where the initiatives — including the people and organizations that lead these efforts— collaborate to establish connected programs. We identify opportunities for mobility management professionals to consider a focus on Complete Streets projects in their work. The philosophy and operations of mobility management and Complete Streets are more similar than not. Both have the purpose of enhancing access, mobility, and equity in communities. Professionals in each of these sectors have opportunities to leverage resources and build sustainable and vibrant projects that ultimately affect the well-being of our communities.

Incentives for Change: Rewarding Healthy Improvements to Small Food Stores

This brief offers suggested incentives for small food retailers. Incentives discussed include: education on local regulations, waiving administrative requirements, fees or taxes, lowering up-front costs to provide healthier options, training for owners, store renovations, and promotion to build business among new customers.

Introducing the Assembly: Civic Design Guidelines

“The Center for Active Design is thrilled to announce the release of the Assembly: Civic Design Guidelines, a groundbreaking playbook for creating well-designed and well-maintained public spaces as a force for building trust and healing divisions in local communities.

The Assembly Guidelines capture the culmination of four years of research and collaboration—with input from 200+ studies, 50+ cities, and dozens of expert advisors—to provide evidence-based design and maintenance strategies for creating cities where people trust each other, have confidence in local institutions, and actively work together to address local priorities.

Funded by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, this is a pivotal and timely resource for anyone who designs, builds, manages, studies, or advocates for public space. Practitioners can use the Assembly Guidelines in a variety of ways: apply the checklist to a public space project; initiate dialogue about local civic challenges; test tactical, low-cost design interventions; and shape decision-making around capital investments.

CfAD is delighted to share the Assembly Guidelines as an inspiring, practical tool that serves as a call to action for designing and maintaining great public spaces for all.”

Introduction to Complete Streets

The presentation demonstrates the variety of options in creating roads that are safe for all users, regardless of age, ability, or mode of transportation.

Joint Use Toolkit

This guide is designed to help school staff and community leaders craft and implement joint use agreements. It includes model language and success stories, as well as financing strategies.

Keep Calm and Carry On to School

A new infobrief, Keep Calm and Carry On to School: Improving Arrival and Dismissal for Walking and Biking, provides information on how schools, districts, cities, counties, and community partners can address arrival and dismissal in school travel plans as well as other planning, policy, and programming efforts.

Let’s Go For A Walk

Check out this new, free walking audit toolkit from Safe Routes To School National Partnership. Walk audits can be informal and casual, or can include city councilmembers, traffic engineers, and detailed forms. In this toolkit, they give you the tools to hold your own walk audit that will help you achieve the goals of your community.

Let’s Go Toolkits

Let’s Go’s website has a host of toolkits which are loaded with information on how to integrate Let’s Go!‘s evidence based strategies and the 5-2-1-0 message into specific environments (schools, out-of-school, child care, health care and workplaces).

Level Up!

CDC developed a new framework to encourage 25 million Americans to “level up” the amount of physical activity they get—either moving from a sedentary lifestyle to a moderately active one, or from a moderately active one to a lifestyle that meets suggested physical activity thresholds. This framework includes rallying public health practitioners to deliver programs that work; creating messaging around active lifestyles; mobilizing partners and training leaders for action; and developing technologies, tools, and data to support physical activity.

Local Government Food Policy Database

The Growing Food Connections Local Government Policy Database is a searchable collection of local public policies that explicitly support community food systems. This database provides policymakers, government staff, and others interested in food policy with concrete examples of local public policies that have been adopted to address a range of food systems issues: rural and urban food production, farmland protection, transfer of development rights, food aggregation and distribution infrastructure, local food purchasing and procurement, healthy food access, food policy councils, food policy coordination, food system metrics, tax reductions and exemptions for food infrastructure, and much more.

Marketing Matters

The complete report equips jurisdictions with the data and tools necessary to combat the marketing of unhealthy foods and beverages to young children. It provides a detailed legal analysis of the options available, and discusses strategies communities can use to reduce unhealthy marketing. A policy poster is also available.

Mobility Equity Framework: How to Make Transportation Work for People

For too long, transportation planning has focused on cars rather than people while neglecting communities of color and low-income neighborhoods. This framework offers planners and community advocates a step-by-step guide to a more community-centered transportation planning process that focuses on the mobility needs of communities and puts affected communities at the center of decision-making.

Model Beverage and Food Vending Machine Standards

This document describes vending standards developed to provide a model for municipal, state, and federal government leased or operated vending machines or vending machines on public property. The standards could also be used by hospitals, private workplaces, and others to support the health of their employees or visitors.

Model Healthy Food System Resolution

ChangeLab Solutions developed this Model Healthy Food System Resolution to help community members and policymakers start their own conversation about how the local government can support a healthier food system. It suggests numerous actions that the local government could take to understand the local food system, and it establishes a Food Policy Council to continue the food system dialogue after the resolution is enacted.

Model Healthy Municipal Snack and Beverage Vending Agreement

The purpose of this guide is to help nutrition advocates and municipalities use the contracting process to achieve the following goals: (1) improve the nutritional quality of snacks and beverages sold on municipal property, (2) negotiate favorable terms and conditions, (3) develop strategic vendor relations, (4) increase process efficiencies, and (5) improve communication and customer service.

Multimodal Strategies for Rural/Small Town Areas

The U.S. Department of Transportation recently released a resource for transportation practitioners in small towns and rural communities titled “Small Town and Rural Multimodal Networks.” It applies existing national design guidelines to rural settings and highlights small town and rural case studies. Challenges specific to rural communities are addressed and focus on opportunities to make incremental improvements despite these geographic, fiscal, and other challenges.

National Action Plan to Promote Health Through Increased Fruit and Vegetable Consumption 2015 Report Card

This report provides an update on the status of fruit and vegetable consumption in the US as of 2015. It provides a list of prioritized strategies to increase fruit and vegetable consumption in the following settings: nutrition promotion and marketing; supermarkets and other retailers; fruit and vegetable suppliers; restaurants and other food service establishments; schools, child care, and other institutions serving children/adolescents; work places; health care and health organizations; research and evaluation; and state and federal policy.

National Farm to School Month Fact Sheet

October is National Farm to School Month! This fact sheet offers an overview of National Farm to School Month and ideas for celebrating and taking action in your community.

National Healthy Worksite Program

This website provides a comprehensive toolkit to support the Worksite Health 101 training as well as supporting materials and guidance for employers to implement comprehensive workplace health programs.

NEMS-CS

The NEMS Corner Store survey assesses the nutrition environments, specifically in corner stores. While similar to NEMS-S, NEMS-CS also measures canned and frozen fruits and vegetables as well as additional snack and beverage items commonly found in corner stores.

New BRFSS Brief Report: Overweight and Obesity Among NYS Adults, 2015

The New York State (NYS) Department of Health (DOH) is pleased to announce the release of a new report based on data from the 2015 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS), an annual statewide telephone survey of adults developed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and administered by the NYSDOH. The brief report, “Overweight and Obesity among New York State Adults, 2015,” provides updated prevalence estimates of both overweight and obesity in the state. According to the report, one-quarter (25.0%) of adults in NYS are obese and another 34.5% are overweight, an estimated 8.4 million residents. The prevalence of obesity in NYS is higher among adults who are non-Hispanic black or Hispanic (30.9% and 29.3%, respectively), earn an annual household income less than $50,000 (28.9%), have less than a college education (28.6%), are currently living with a disability (37.2%), and those who live outside of New York City (26.9%). The New York State Prevention Agenda 2013-2018 has identified reducing obesity in adults as a focus area and established an objective to reduce obesity by 5% among adults and by 10% among adults living with disabilities. More information about the Prevention Agenda and the recommended strategies for addressing obesity in adults can be found on the NYSDOH website: http://www.health.ny.gov/prevention/prevention_agenda/2013-2017/ This brief has been approved for public release.

New Healthy Meeting Hacks Infographic

CSPI developed a new infographic that lays out nine simple, low-cost tips to support healthy choices at meetings and conferences. We all know that the workplace environment can have a major influence on employee health. Unfortunately, the food served at meetings is typically calorie-dense and nutrient-poor, and day-long conferences set aside little time for physical activity. CSPI’s infographic helps encourage and inform organizations looking to provide a healthier meeting environment. View the resource here: Healthy Meeting Hacks Infographic Final

New Road and Intersection Safety Tool

A new tool from Parks and Trails New York is available for local transportation planners and advocates to determine which intersections pose safety concerns for cyclists and pedestrians

New York State-New York City Regional Food Hubs Task Force Final Action Plan

Recommendations of the Regional Food Hubs Task Force. In December 2014, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo formed the New York State and New York City Regional Food Hub Task Force at the statewide Farm-to-Table Upstate-Downstate Agricultural Summit. The goal of the Upstate-Downstate Summit was to boost production and consumption of New York State fresh and value-added foods. The Task force explored tools to increase access to fresh food, by helping smaller producers to reach local downstate markets. The Task Force was charged with identifying capital investments and policy solutions that advance these goals. Based on its research and analysis, the Task Force recommends the development of a NYS-NYC Regional Food Hubs System, organized within a framework of physical and programmatic initiatives to be developed and implemented in partnership with local stakeholders.

Nutrition Guidelines for Vending Machines

Increasing access to healthier foods and beverages in public places is a fast-growing movement across the country. This chart compares different sets of recommended nutrition criteria for vended beverages, packaged snacks, and entrée-type foods.

Nutrition Standards for Foods in Schools Fact Sheets

This website provides four CDC developed audience-specific fact sheets as a resource for school staff, parents, and young people to use to support and develop strong nutrition standards that can impact the health of students at school. These fact sheets are designed to answer commonly asked questions about the IOM’s Nutrition Standards for Foods in Schools report and provide recommendations for implementing the standards. View the fact sheets near the end of the page under the “Smart Snacks” tab.

NYS Health Impact Statements

The New York State Department of Health (NYS DOH) is pleased to announce the release of four new Health Impact Statements: “Increasing Physical Activity at Schools in New York State”, “Improving Nutrition at Schools in New York State”, “Implementing Food Standards in New York State”, and “Increasing Breastfeeding in New York State”. From 2013-2018, NYS DOH received funding from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to address the problem of obesity by increasing physical activity opportunities for students; improving the nutrition environment for students; implementing food service guidelines at community sites including work places, hospitals, municipalities and community-based organizations; and promoting, supporting and protecting breastfeeding in hospitals, health care practices, worksites and community organizations. The attached reports summarize the impact that this funding had on children and adults in NYS. Each report includes a description of the problem, the intervention, and the health impact. These reports have been approved for public use. Feel free to share them with partners or colleagues that are involved in initiatives to decrease obesity, increase physical activity, improve nutrition, and increase breastfeeding.

NYSDOH Healthy Hospital Food Initiative (Publication #1624)

The hospitals toolkit can be download from the NYS DOH website at the link included. Hard copies of the toolkit packets can also be ordered, free of charge, from the NYS Distribution Center. Toolkits are intended for use by CHSC grantees and their subcontractors and can be provided to worksites, organizations, hospitals etc. in support of your work to establish standards for foods purchased and/or served. To place an order with the NYS Distribution Center, please follow the instructions below:
Send an email to: b0019w@health.ny.gov
Include:
– Publication number (see above for publication number)
– Quantity requesting
– Mailing address (Note: Publications cannot be mailed to a PO Box)

NYSDOH Healthy Workplace Food Initiative (Publication #1625)

The worksites toolkit can be download from the NYS DOH website at the link included. Hard copies of the toolkit packets can also be ordered, free of charge, from the NYS Distribution Center. Toolkits are intended for use by CHSC grantees and their subcontractors and can be provided to worksites, organizations, hospitals etc. in support of your work to establish standards for foods purchased and/or served. To place an order with the NYS Distribution Center, please follow the instructions below:
Send an email to: b0019w@health.ny.gov
Include:
– Publication number (see above for publication number)
– Quantity requesting
– Mailing address (Note: Publications cannot be mailed to a PO Box)

Pedestrians First: Tools for a Walkable City

Walkability is a crucial first step in creating sustainable transportation in an urban environment. Effectively understanding and measuring the complex ecology of walkability has proven challenging for many organizations and governments, given the various levels of policy-making and implementation involved. In the past, Western and Eurocentric standards have permeated measurement attempts and have included data collection practices that are too complicated to have utility in many parts of the world or at a level beyond that of the neighborhood. In order to expand the measurement of walkability to more places and to promote a better understanding of walkability, ITDP has developed Pedestrians First. This tool will facilitate the understanding and the measurement of the features that promote walkability in urban environments around the world at multiple levels. With a better global understanding of walkability, and more consistent and frequent measurement of the walkability of urban environments, decision-makers will be empowered to enact policies that create more walkable urban areas.

Perspectives of Urban Corner Store Owners and Managers on Community Health Problems and Solutions

Urban corner store interventions have been implemented to improve access to and promote purchase of healthy foods. However, the perspectives of store owners and managers, who deliver and shape these interventions in collaboration with nonprofit, government, and academic partners, have been largely overlooked. The study sought to explore the views of store owners and managers on the role of their stores in the community and their beliefs about health problems and solutions in the community.

Physical Activity Case Studies

Voices for Healthy Kids and The Safe Routes to School National Partnership have released a series of case studies on successful campaigns to increase physical activity. These new resources share stories of state- and local-level campaigns that have implemented Safe Routes to School, Complete Streets, shared use agreements, environmental justice policies, and more. They provide excellent examples of how communities and organizations can advance policies and programs that institutionalize support for walking, biking, physical activity, and healthy communities. You can access the new case studies in the “Resource” section of the following Voices for Healthy Kids toolkits.

Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans

The Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans (PAG) are an essential resource for health professional and policymakers. Based on the latest science, they provide guidance on how children and adults can improve their health through physical activity. It also provides ways to help consumers understand the benefits of physical activity and how to make it a part of their regular routine.

Putting Health on the Menu

ChangeLab Solutions developed this toolkit to describe how to create a strong healthy restaurant program, providing a variety of options and examples that communities can draw upon in establishing their own program. A modle healthy restaurant program agreement is also available.

ReFED Food Innovator Database and Policy Finder Tool

This is an outline of a webinar from ReFED, an organization dedicate to reducing food waste, on how to use their Innovator Database in dealing with excess food. The tool tells you who in your area to connect with that will use excess food. Their policy finder also allows you to see various policies dealing with excess waste across the country, which you can propose to your own local governments.

Report Highlights How Complete Streets Support Equity

Researchers at the University of Illinois, Chicago, published a report about how Complete Streets support equity. This report, “Prioritizing Transportation Equity through Complete Streets,” examines results from eight communities that chose to prioritize equity in their Complete Streets policies. The report presents lessons and strategies that the eight communities learned; prioritizing equity was found difficult to put into practice.

Resources to Reduce Sugary Drink Consumption Among Latino Kids

Salud America! has released new materials on sugary drink consumption and Latino kids, including a research review, issue brief, and infographics. These new resources, available in English and Spanish, add to Salud America!’s library of existing materials on topics such as healthier schools, active spaces, healthy weight, and health equity.

Road Signs Pedcast

In the Road Signs Pedcast (a “walking podcast”), you’ll hear from people on the ground who are building safe and active streets. Each episode discusses one transportation tool that promotes community health. In this first episode, learn about an approach to making existing streets safer—a road diet—with a story from Oakland, California.

Running a Food Hub-Lessons Learned from the Field

In recent years, several surveys—including the 2013 National Food Hub Survey and the Food Hub Benchmarking Study—have collected data on U.S. food hubs. What seems to be lacking from the current research on food hubs is information on operations and “lessons learned” from those involved in starting and operating food hubs. To help fill this void, interviews were conducted with the leaders of 11 food hubs, using an open-ended, free-flowing format. This allowed for maximum flexibility during each interview and the ability to further capture the unique nature of each entity. The food hubs, located throughout the United States, represent a diversity of organization types, product offerings, operation structures, and missions.

Safe Routes for Older Adults

This guide provides communities with background information on walking and bicycling safety for older adults and tools to make transportation
in California communities age-friendly for all.

Safe Routes to School (Roadmap & Brochure)

Safe Routes to School is a movement that is changing communities and making children healthier by getting children to use their own power to get to and from school. This illustrated roadmap highlights 13 policy options that can help make Safe Routes to School a permanent part of our communities.

Safe Routes to School National Partnership

This website offers depth of expertise, a national support network, and know-how to help make communities and schools safer, healthier, and more active. Includes factsheets, guides, publications, webinars and more related to SRTS, shared use, healthy communities and active transportation

Safety Demonstration Projects: Case Studies from Orlando, FL, Lexington, KY, and South Bend, IN

To test out creative approaches to safer street design, the National Complete Streets Coalition launched the Safe Streets Academy. We worked with three cities around the country to build skills in safer street design, creative placemaking, and community engagement, then helped the cities put these skills into practice. Through demonstration projects, the City of Orlando, FL, the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government, KY, and the City of South Bend, IN transformed their streets, intersections, and neighborhoods into slower, safer places for people. Communities around the country can learn from the stories of these demonstration projects to test out low-cost ways to create safer streets.

These case studies highlight lessons learned from these demonstration projects, including how the projects helped these cities build trust with the community and with other jurisdictions, test out new approaches for safer street design and make quick adjustments as needed, and change the conversation about the importance of slower, safer streets.

Sell Healthy! Guide

This guide is designed to support store owners in implementing healthy changes. Topics include products and displays, pricing and promotions, and store appearance.

Shared Use Agreements & Tribal Nations

This fact sheet provides an overview of shared use in light of legal concepts that are unique to Indian County, and which may be relevant when entering into a shared use agreement with a Tribal Nation.

Shop Healthy NYC Adopt a Shop Guide

Shop Healthy NYC has developed a guide for community residents and organizations interested in working with local food retailers to increase healthy offerings, like fresh fruits and vegetables, 100% whole wheat bread and low-salt canned goods. This guide provides tips for working with retailers to make healthful changes and for increasing community demand for these healthy offerings.

Shop Healthy NYC Implementation Guide

Shop Healthy NYC has created this implementation guide for groups that are interested in transforming a neighborhood’s food environment by working not only with food retailers, but with food suppliers, distributors and other community groups.

Small Town and Rural Design Guide

This online design resource and idea book is intended to help small towns and rural communities support safe, comfortable, and active travel for people of all ages and abilities.

Small Town and Rural Multimodal Networks

This document is intended to be a resource for transportation practitioners in small towns and rural communities. It applies existing national design guidelines in a rural setting and highlights small town and rural case studies. It addresses challenges specific to rural areas, recognizes how many rural roadways are operating today, and focuses on opportunities to make incremental improvements despite the geographic, fiscal, and other challenges that many rural communities face.

Smart Food Choices: How to Implement Food Service Guidelines in Public Facilities

This document can help you implement food service guidelines in your government work site or other public facility to increase the availability of healthier choices at food service venues, including cafeterias, concession stands, snack bars, and vending machines. Audiences for this document include state and local health departments and other interested partners working to implement food service guidelines in government work sites and other public facilities.

Social Determinants of Health

This website provides CDC resources for SDOH data, tools for action, programs, and policy. They may be used by people in public health, community organizations, and health care systems to assess SDOH and improve community well-being.

Sodium Reduction Toolkit

The National Network of Public Health Institutes, Health Resources in Action, and CDC developed a new resource, “Partnering with Food Service to Reduce Sodium: A Toolkit for Public Health Practitioners.” This toolkit provides public health practitioners with a list of strategies, tools, and resources to build new and/or enhance existing partnerships with food service providers interested in reducing sodium in foods prepared, served, and sold.

Starting a Food Hub: Successful Hubs Share Their Stories

This webinar brings together the stories of the formation and first year of three different, successful food hubs. Presenters share some of the best and worst decisions they made, including: what types of contacts they felt really helped their business to thrive; how much money they needed and where they got it; and others.

Stimulating Supermarket Development: A New Day for New York

The New York Supermarket Commission developed this report which makes nine recommendations, with the goal of protecting the health of children and families by ensuring access to affordable nutritious food. To reach this goal, they call on the city and state to put policies into place that ensure healthy retail.

Stories from Small Towns

This report provides examples of structural changes in small towns (<25,000 pop) that improved their walkability, showing that these types of changes can work in small towns too, not just big cities.

Streets as Places Action Pack

This user-friendly guide addresses the common challenges local advocates face when working to improve streets. Are you looking to create better streets in your neighborhood or community? Have you gotten discouraged by bureaucratic red tape or simple lack of communication? Or, are you passionate about great streets but struggling to get neighbors or city officials to share your enthusiasm or vision for people-centered public spaces?

Sugar-Sweetened Beverage Consumption among New York State Adults by County, BRFSS 2016

“The report “Sugar-Sweetened Beverage Consumption among New York State Adults by County, BRFSS 2016” presents the prevalence of daily sugar-sweetened beverage (SSB) consumption by county in NYS. SSBs are drinks with added sugar including: non-diet soft drinks/sodas, flavored juice drinks, sports drinks, sweetened tea, coffee drinks, energy drinks, and electrolyte replacement drinks. According to the report, 23.2% of adults drink at least one SSB per day in NYS. Within NYS, the prevalence of daily SSB consumption varies by county from 15.6% to 36.8%.
• Counties outside New York City with the highest prevalence are Jefferson (36.8%), Genesee (34.9%) and Livingston (33.3%).
• Counties outside New York City with the lowest prevalence are Yates (15.6%), Hamilton (16.4%), and Westchester (17.8%).
• Among New York City boroughs, prevalence is highest in Bronx (30.9%) and lowest in Richmond (16.7%).”

Sugary Drinks in America: Who’s Drinking What and How Much?

Over the last two decades, the sugary drink landscape has been changing. Between a plethora of new drinks on the market and reported changes in beverage sales, many people are confused or concerned about the current state of sugary drink sales and consumption patterns. This report describes the consumption and sales of sugary drinks in the United States over time and among demographic subgroups. Specifically, the report defines sugary drinks, describes health issues related to sugary drink consumption, and answers questions about how many sugary drinks are being consumed in the US and whether consumption patterns differ by age, race/ethnicity, and income.

The Best Complete Streets Policies of 2016

The National Complete Streets Coalition examines and scores Complete Streets policies each year, comparing adopted policy language to the ideal. Ideal policies refine a community’s vision for transportation, provide for many types of users, complement community needs, and establish a flexible project delivery approach necessary for an effective Complete Streets process and outcome. Different types of policy statements are included in this examination, including legislation, resolutions, executive orders, departmental policies, and policies adopted by an elected board.

The Built Environment Assessment tool

The Built Environment Assessment Tool (BE Tool) measures the core features and qualities of the built environment that affect health, especially walking, biking, and other types of physical activity.
The core features assessed in the BE Tool include:
Built environment infrastructure—such as road types, curb cuts and ramps, intersections and crosswalks, traffic control, and public transportation.
Walkability—for example, access to safe, attractive sidewalks and paths with inviting features.
Bikeability—such as the presence of bike lane or bike path features.
Recreational sites and structures.
Food environment—such as access to grocery stores, convenience stores, and farmers markets. The tool itself is Appendix D . See the links at the bottom of the page.

The Public Plate in New York State: Growing Health, Farms and Jobs with Local Food

Boosting public spending on fresh foods grown on New York State farms and served in schools, childcare centers, older adult centers, food pantries and other institutions, has the potential to improve health for more than six million New Yorkers, while increasing economic opportunities across the state. The new analysis of how food is purchased and consumed in public places reveals opportunities to improve current New York food procurement policies and practices in ways that will benefit communities across the state.

The Ultimate Guide to Creating Walkable Streets

“Here at Strong Towns, we’re advocates for a simple concept we like to call “”slow the cars”” because we’ve seen in city after city that slowing down cars makes our communities more prosperous and resilient — not to mention safer.

But, while this concept is simple, the reasoning behind it and the path to get to safer streets is, by no means, easy. Today, we’re sharing our ultimate guide to building slower, more walkable streets, filled with helpful articles and resources you can use to #slowthecars in your town. We’ve broken it down into 4 key sections that will explain why we need walkable streets, how to tell if your streets aren’t walkable, and resources for building walkable streets, plus inspiring stories that will demonstrate how to build safer streets.”

The Wheels on the Bike Go Round & Round

As more and more people are bicycling in the United States, a bike train can be a strong part of a larger Safe Routes to School program, initiatives that thousands of communities across the nation are establishing.

The purpose of this guide is to provide a simple description of how to plan and organize a bike train. This guide outlines how to put together and run a bike train program at your school, including initial planning considerations, logistics, promotion, training, and evaluation. The guide has tried-and-true methods, resources, and templates to get you off to a quick start. Whether you are familiar with Safe Routes to School or it is brand new to you, this guide will get you on your way, pedaling toward a successful bike train program.

Tiendas Saludables: Cómo lograr que las tiendas sean sitios de compras más saludables (Spanish version of USDA resource, “Healthy Corner Stores: Making Corner Stores Healthier Places to Shop”)

In this USDA guide in Spanish, you will learn how to lay the groundwork for planning and implementing a successful program in your community. It’s important to note that all communities are different, and there is no “one-size-fits-all” corner store program that works for every State, city, or neighborhood. A number of case studies, resources, and best practice recommendations from organizations that have effectively maintained these programs are included for additional learning and support.

Tools of Change: A Resource Catalog for Community Health

ChangeLab Solutions created a new catalog of resources for laws and policies to ensure everyday health for all, including access to affordable and healthy food and beverages and creating safe opportunities for physical activity.

Transportation Toolkit

The U.S. Department of Transportation released a new toolkit that provides resources and guidance to better understand transportation planning, including accessibility and safe spaces for walking and biking. The toolkit, geared towards members of the public who wish to learn how to engage in the transportation decision-making process at the local, regional, state, and federal levels, defines key transportation acronyms and jargon using both text and graphics. The toolkit also highlights engagement opportunities. The Toolkit can be found here and the Quick Guide here.

Understanding How the Built Environment Influences Transportation Choice

“One of the biggest factors in deciding which transportation mode you’ll use is the built environment. The infrastructure that surrounds us determines which modes get used the most and which the least.

Think about it like this: do you want to bike on a three-lane highway, or on a protected bike lane? If you chose the protected bike lane – or driving on the three-lane highway – the built environment influenced your decision.

These are some of the ways the built environment influences travel behavior. Many of them are interrelated. I”

Understanding the Basics of Transportation Choice

“At Mobility Lab, we spend a lot of time researching people’s transportation behavior and why they make the choices they do. What made you bike to work yesterday, but drive alone today?

Creating a sustainable, efficient, and equitable transportation network requires more than just building a new streetcar line. We need to consider what people consider when they make a mode choice, or else they won’t use the transportation options we invest in.”

Updated Community Garden Policy Reference Guide

The Public Health Law Center recently announced the release of their new and improved Community Garden Policy Reference Guide. The guide is organized around the steps of creating a garden designed to help community gardeners, advocates, and policymakers navigate potential legal and policy issues related to community gardening.

Vending Labeling Fact Sheet

The Center for Science in the Public Interest and Voices for Healthy Kids developed a fact sheet on vending labeling. This document includes the requirements of the national vending labeling law and information about healthier vending, including evaluations of initiatives, consumer demand, and the business case for offering healthier products. Share this fact sheet with participating worksites and other stakeholders to support healthier vending.

Video: How to Make More Money Selling Produce

The Oregon WIC Program released a new video to help smaller WIC authorized stores make more money selling produce while increasing the availability of fresh produce for WIC participants and the community. In the video, Joe Rossi of Rossi Farms, gives tips on how to boost profitability when you only have a small amount of space to sell produce.

What Does it Take to Build a Healthy Community?

This video highlights the importance of laws and policies to build communities that are healthy, equitable, and resilient. This Health in All Policies video emphasizes the importance of the environment for creating healthier communities.