NEW Resources on Making Your Community Healthier from the Prevention Institute

Across the country, a growing number of local elected officials understand that health begins at home—in the places where people live, work and go to school. At a time of growing concern about the rise of preventable chronic disease, these officials understand it is their responsibility—working alongside residents, neighborhood organizations, businesses and other leaders—to help make their communities healthier.

The Prevention Institute has a variety of resources applicable to your efforts as a part of Let’s Move! Cities, Towns and Counties, including:

Championing Change: Elected Officials Act Locally to Make their Communities Healthier, a new brief by Prevention Institute and the American Public Health Association, examines the approaches local elected officials are taking to improve the health of their communities. Through interviews and case studies, it provides tips and lessons from across the country, providing a resource to help local elected officials and their staff members improve health in their hometowns.

Addressing the Intersection: Preventing Violence and Promoting Healthy Eating and Active Living: The impact of violence in communities is far-reaching: when people don’t feel safe in their communities, they are less likely to use local parks and community centers and access services such as public transportation.This document provides an explanation of the inter-relationship between violence and healthy eating and activity. The findings and recommendations offered in this paper can support practitioners and advocates in their work to prevent chronic disease in communities heavily impacted by violence.

Recipes for Change: Healthy Food in Every Community: This paper outlines organizational practices and public policies to expand access to healthy foods in support of healthy eating and better overall health. It is part of a larger effort to identify high-impact approaches related to the Prevention Institute’s vision of healthy people in healthy places.

What’s Good for Health is Good for Business: Engaging the Business Community in Prevention Efforts outlines the steps involved in forging successful community prevention partnerships with local businesses, and provides key talking points and data points on how to make the case to business partners.

Collaboration Multiplier helps those interested in forging multi-sector partnerships to address community health issues. It is designed to guide an organization or agency (or individual) to a better understanding of which partners it needs and how to engage them, or to facilitate organizations that already work together in identifying activities to achieve a common goal, identify missing sectors that can contribute to a solution, delineate partner perspectives and contributions, and leverage expertise and resources.