Advancing Obesity Solutions Through Investments in the Built Environment Proceedings of a Workshop (2018) / Chapter Skim
Currently Skimming:
3 Examples from Communities and Cities
3 Examples from Communities and Cities
Pages 21-38
The Chapter Skim interface presents what we've algorithmically identified as the most significant single chunk of text within every page in the chapter.
Select key terms on the right to highlight them within pages of the chapter.
From page 21... ...
(Leslie Meehan) • The transportation and health sectors have many opportunities to work together to improve community health, but advancing obesity solutions will require the involvement of many sectors.
|
From page 22... ...
"We were responding not only to their needs but to the values of the people that they represent." Nance explained that the resulting plan included 10 growth priorities and a preferred growth map developed from scenarios of how the region wanted to grow, which highlighted multiple centers connected by regional transit. The growth plan also included more than 75 tools that local governments could use according to their own pace and appetite for change.
|
From page 23... ...
, three tools from the long-range planning process -- walkability audits, park access audits, and shared- and open-use policies -- were chosen for implementation and applied to West Charlotte. This community faces particular challenges, she observed, including lower household incomes; lower high school graduation rates; higher unemployment rates; higher violent crime rates; and a greater prevalence of heart disease, stroke, and diabetes relative to elsewhere in Mecklenburg County, where Charlotte is located.
|
From page 24... ...
Nance and her team set out to create a simple park access audit that could be used to assess physical access to a park (by car, bike, or foot) , safety (including lighting and the presence of emergency phones, illicit activity, and dangerous
|
From page 25... ...
Nance described that the third strategy CCOG used to increase physical activity was encouraging and supporting shared- and open-use policies. These policies, she explained, allow recreational facilities owned by schools to be used by community members during nonschool hours.
|
From page 26... ...
It's going to take a lot to move us forward." REGIONAL TRANSPORTATION PLANNING IN TENNESSEE Leslie Meehan, director of the Office of Primary Prevention in the Commissioner's Office of the Tennessee Department of Health, began with a quotation from David Mowat of the Canadian Partnership Against Cancer that, she said, speaks to her daily charge: "Most chronic diseases and conditions are a normal response by normal people to an abnormal environment." Obesity is influenced by multiple factors, she pointed out, which means that solutions to the problem of obesity can address multiple contributors. Her job, she explained, is to think about how to reduce the negative impacts of environments that can promote chronic diseases, including obesity.
|
From page 27... ...
to think about the impact of transportation on health. She defined MPOs as federally designated regional transportation planning authorities found in all urban regions of the country with 50,000 or more people that work with local governments to determine regional transportation priorities and allocate resources.
|
From page 28... ...
"What we resoundingly heard," she said, "was that people wanted more mass transit, they wanted more walking and bicycling facilities, and they wanted to preserve existing roadways over building new roadways." According to Meehan, the survey showed that the public valued choice, the ability to be physically active as part of their daily transportation routine, and their time: "Whether you are spending time in your car or outside of a car for a trip, transportation takes a lot of time and can take away from our quality of life." Meehan explained that "we took this public opinion and we turned it into public policy." Using the results of the survey and other sources of community input, the Nashville Area MPO developed a new regional transportation plan that guided how the organization would spend about $8 billion in transportation revenue. Meehan noted that the plan included the region's first regional vision for walking and bicycling, proposing about 1,000 miles of both walking and bicycling facilities.
|
From page 29... ...
Complete Streets -- streets that have context-appropriate transportation facilities such as sidewalks, bikeways, and transit -- increased from an estimated 2 percent of funded transportation projects to nearly 77 percent of projects in just 10 years, representing billions of dollars in transportation investments.4 Meehan added that the Tennessee Department of Health has begun several new initiatives to promote health through the built environment. For example, she explained that the department recently hired seven health development coordinators, one for each of the seven regions in the state, to think about how communities grow and how access to healthy food and opportunities for physical activity are vital not only for local economies but also for the health of populations.
|
From page 30... ...
In this way, she observed, state government can influence employment, livability, quality of life, and health all at the same time. PHYSICAL ACTIVITY IN MONTANA Montana is a large rural state with a statewide population density of only about six people per square mile, began Cathy Costakis, who works for Montana State University–Bozeman and is a senior consultant to the Montana Department of Public Health and Human Services' Nutrition and Physical Activity program.
|
From page 31... ...
. She noted that three-quarters of adults in Montana are not reaching the recommended physical activity levels of at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity activity and 2 days of muscle-strengthening activity each week, and 72 percent of youth are not engaging in at least 60 minutes of physical activity each day (CDC, 2015; Montana Office of Public Instruction, 2017)
|
From page 32... ...
She described how department members engaged the community; talked with planners and public works directors; and joined the Non-Motorized Travel Advisory Council, "which they never even knew existed." They worked with partners to get people biking and walking to work and schools. They also sought to sell the local government
|
From page 33... ...
She explained that to encourage policy and environmental changes that help make communities safer, more accessible, and more inviting places for people to walk, bike, and take public transportation, the state created the Building Active Communities Initiative (BACI) Action Institute.
|
From page 34... ...
Moreover, she reported that larger communities participating in the BACI Action Institute have expanded beyond Complete Streets policies to develop growth policies, transportation plans, and small-area plans. The second case study Costakis described is in Park County, which has about 16,000 residents and is just north of Yellowstone National Park.
|
From page 35... ...
Barriers to Change Focusing on the barriers that limit collaboration, Nance pointed out that transportation planning in North and South Carolina is carried out separately from land use planning. In other places, councils of government also house the MPOs, which are responsible for both land use and transpor
|
From page 36... ...
"That is where we're going to see some of our wins," she argued, "when you have those policies at all levels of government." On a related issue, the panelists commented on how best to include the private sector in collaborations. Nance pointed to the importance of getting key elected officials involved in inviting representatives of the private sector to participate.
|
From page 37... ...
"They see it as a real economic development strategy," she said. In Charlotte, Nance added, the local chamber has shown interest in expansion of the light rail system because areas around transit stops tend to have higher property values and economic development and economic opportunity potential.
|
From page 38... ...
Often, she explained, former elected officials continue to hold positions of leadership in their communities, and they can be included as ex officio leaders. Purcell observed that even if a particular leader may not be interested in an issue, other leaders can step in to deliver what people want.
|
Key Terms
This material may be derived from roughly machine-read images, and so is provided only to facilitate research.
More
information on Chapter Skim is available.