The American Public Health Association (APHA) declared 2017 the Year of Climate Change and Health. And, fittingly, September was designated Extreme Weather Month. As Texas, Louisiana, Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina are beginning the long recovery from Hurricanes Harvey and Irma, 140 wildfires are consuming two million acres of land in California, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, […]
Although many people are aging healthily and have access to nutritious food, according to a report by the United States Department of Agriculture, nine percent of households with people 65 and older experience food insecurity. Food insecurity and malnutrition carry serious health implications for older adults, like depression, asthma and congestive heart failure. Some communities […]
Each year when the weather warms up, I think back to an afternoon when my family picked blackberries by a road’s edge. I remember thorn pricks, bee stings and the pinging sound the berries made in our metal bowls as we plucked them from the brambles. Later, we turned the berries into jam that we […]
Advocates across many disciplines and with differing viewpoints agree that our food system is broken. But with pervasive problems in every link of that system, there is less agreement about how to fix it, or even what the biggest problem is. Here are just a few of the most common complaints: “Farming is not profitable […]
Ten years ago, professional planners and nutritionists rarely sat at the same table, let alone shared a common vision. The recent release of the Growing Food Connections (GFC) Policy Database symbolizes the great strides that have occurred from collaborations across the planning and food/nutrition sectors to achieve policy and practice changes that support healthy communities. […]
Two housing authorities in King County and Seattle, WA worked to promote cross-cultural exchange among residents and addressed necessary social and cultural factors that influence behavior change.
The HKHC partnership in Cuba, New Mexico addressed social and cultural factors as they adjusted their approach to developing a mobile farmers’ market for the Navajo community.
The Healthy Kids for Kingston (HKK) partnership managed tensions related to differing individual and organizational interests by creating an advisory network, focusing on co-creating a vision, and engaging residents in more focused and meaningful ways.
This document offers a range of insights that challenge business as usual, and explores lessons learned about investing in healthy community change to help funders of all sizes leverage their investments, achieve their goals and sustain their results.
These case studies summarize the Fit Community initiative, an innovative program that helped generate changes in policies and environments in municipalities and counties across North Carolina between 2006 and 2012.