Abstracts
Dr. Sandra Witt
Keynote Speaker: Monday, November 14, 8:45-9:30 a.m.
"Achieving Health Equity: A New Public Health Practice"
Abstract
Good health is not distributed evenly across society. Poor health and shortened lives often concentrate in low-income and communities of color living in specific places. Health is more than just access to health care. Where we live, work, and play - place- and the health promoting opportunities in place- impact how long and how healthy we live. The Bay Area Regional Healthy Inequities Framework for Health Equity provides a way to understand and address the multiple pathways that lead to stark differences in health outcomes by considering both the need for health services as well as the social, economic, and physical environments that shape opportunities to health in California. The new public health practice tackles the root causes of social and health inequities through community-driven health promoting policy and systems change. The California Endowment's Building Healthy Communities, a 10 year, billion dollar initiative in 14 places in California, is an example of this new public health paradigm whose goal is to change social and economic conditions in communities so that all children are healthy, safe and ready to learn.
Jay Sandhu
Breakout Session 2: Monday, November 14, 9:40-10:20 a.m.
"Options for Modeling and Measuring Access to Food and Healthcare in ArcGIS"
Abstract
GIS-based data on the accessibility of healthy foods provides greater opportunity for discovering relationships between access and specific behaviors and outcomes. This session will illustrate several different measurements of distance and access and discuss the relationships between data, modeling approach, and scale. Highlights of this ongoing research effort as well as free online maps will be shown and shared.
Jerry Blum
Featured Speaker: Monday, November 14, 9:40-10:20 a.m.
"Planning and Engineering"
Abstract
The General Plan is typically viewed as a city’s land use policy document. As such it has limited effectiveness when it comes to social issues such as health care. In 2010, the City of Ontario adopted The Ontario Plan (TOP), a dynamic framework for sustained, comprehensive leadership in building the community. It integrates components of city governance that are typically disconnected. The Plan states community direction at a point in time (2009) and integrates it into a single guidance system that will shape the Ontario community 20 years or more into the future. The Ontario Plan provides for lasting policies to accommodate change, not only in land use, but also in areas such as education, cultural activities, governance, and health. It consists of a six part Component Framework: 1) Vision, 2) Governance Manual, 3) Policy Plan, 4) City Council Priorities, 5) Implementation, and 6) Tracking and Feedback. This session will discuss the general plan as a management and policy development tool.
Healthy Cities - Chino
Breakout Session 2: Monday, November 14, 10:40-11:45 a.m.
"Communities Models: Healthy Chino Collaborative - A Success Story"
Abstract
A real world example of how a collaborative environment led to the formation of Healthy Chino, many health initiatives, and a healthy component in the City’s updated master plan.
Bill Davenhall
Featured Speaker: Monday, November 14, 12:45-1:25 p.m.
"Using GIS to Design Healthy Communities "
Abstract
GIS-based tools for GeoDesign provide a technology solution to improve how communities are designed or redesigned to encourage healthy lifestyles by laying the foundation for a healthy environment. Many communities today developed over several decades without using spatial data for urban design and planning decisions. GeoDesign brings a more comprehensive means to assess all factors contributing to a community’s design, including social, political, environmental, and economic concerns. Communities that are both healthy and sustainable can positively contribute to an individual’s health status. Linking generalized medical and public health knowledge to geographically specific environmental and social conditions at the personal (household, neighborhood, community, i.e.) level has great potential for changing the way we understand the impact of our environment on our health on an individual level and as a community.
Christopher Ringewald
Featured Speaker: Monday, November 14, 1:30-2:00 p.m.
"Utilizing Community Resources to Support Spatial Decision Processes"
Abstract
Healthy City is an information + action resource that unites community voices, rigorous research and innovative technologies to solve the root causes of social inequity. The online platform provides the public sector with actionable information such as data, maps, and service referrals through our easy-to-use online platform to develop targeted strategies that fuel social change. Community advocates can identify services and partners in their communities and access socioeconomic data helpful in understanding local dynamics. The system is designed for community organizers, planners, and public health professionals to facilitate community data collection and analysis alongside publicly available institutional data. Using web 2.0 technologies, web site visitors can share and collaborate with other issue area experts or community members interested in making a difference.
Ryan Snyder
Breakout Session 1: Monday, November 14, 2:10-2:50 p.m.
"Walkability"
Abstract
This presentation provides an overview of the key components of planning healthy communities. It covers land use planning, particularly as it relates to active transportation, as well as key transportation tools. Attendees will learn about good urban form and how it lends itself to walkable, bikeable, healthy communities. They will also learn about some of the street design tools that are available to construct new communities as well as retrofit existing ones.
The presentation provides a bridge between public health and urban planning. It demonstrates principles of planning healthy, livable places and how they apply.
This presentation is rich with pictures and graphics to illustrate what healthy communities look like and to entice people to want to progress in designing more such places. It also highlights actions that can be taken to transform communities into better places.
Veronica Saldana
Breakout Session 3: Monday, November 14, 2:10-2:50 p.m.
"Strategies for Reducing Food Deserts"
Abstract
The California FreshWorks Fund is a $200 millions loan fund created to improve access to healthy food, spur economic development, and encourage innovation in healthy food retailing. Recently closed, the Fund is now providing financing for grocery stores and other forms of healthy food retail and distribution by providing flexible financing to eligible applicants. Some loans can be packaged with companion grants. The California Endowment, NCB Capital Impact and other community, industry, philanthropic and government partners. It has been modeled after the Pennsylvania Fresh Food Financing Initiative and developed to align with the National Healthy Food Financing Initiative. Program eligibility includes: Califomia healthy food retailers and distributors serving low/moderate income communities with low access to healthy food outlets. The Fund's team, led by NCB Capital Impact and Emerging Markets Inc., is actively looking to deploy the Fund's capital within California's low-income and underserved communities.
Dora Barilla
Featured Speaker: Tuesday, November 15, 8:30-9:00 a.m.
"Policy Implications for Healthy Communities"
Abstract
Good policy changes are essential to sustain the efforts to promote healthy living spaces. Healthy community design principles include incorporating public transit and pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure, accessible green space, community centers, and mixed income housing. Policies provide leaders with the power to implement these principles by encouraging smarter land-use practices and healthy community choices. However, policies aimed at improving the health and well-being of the community requires efforts of multiple players including city councils, zoning boards, planning commissions, health advocates, and community leaders among others. This discussion will cover the fundamentals of health policy, the effect on the healthy community initiatives, an outline of the necessary tools and players, and the future of healthy communities in regards to policy.
Allen Christensen
Breakout Session 1: Tuesday, November 15, 9:05-9:45 a.m.
"Policies that Work"
Abstract
Everybody wants to use programs to address the declining health of the average American. While creating a running event for a community, or providing healthy cooking classes would be ideal, programs such as these are usually not viable options because they involve incentives, materials, and staff. In other words, they require funding. Subsequently, as grant dollars have become more and more scarce, the focus has been shifting from programs towards policies.
This presentation highlights policies for the built environment and opportunities to create health equity. It brings to surface why implementing policy is such a necessity to improving the health of a community. It will broadly cover real, working examples of public health policies. Moreover, it will present groundbreaking tools and new resources that allow attendees to find policies that address health concerns and also get direction in their pursuits to address the health of their respective communities in more impactful ways.
Victor Rivas
Featured Speaker: Tuesday, November 15, 9:55-10:30 a.m.
"Transportation and Healthy Communities"
Abstract
The way we design and build our communities can affect our physical and mental health. Likewise, the shaping of the built environment has a profound impact on the design and implementation of transport networks. The built environment and its transport networks, among other factors, have a profound impact on the quality of life of its citizens. Both, improved design models for the built environment and urban mobility policies, plans and programs that promote public transportation and non-motorized transport options (such as walking and cycling) provide a window for improved communities and healthier lives. The challenge of towns and cities everywhere is to enhance mobility while at the same time reduce congestion, accidents, pollution, etc. This presentation will highlight recent trends in land use and sustainable urban mobility which has resulted in interesting new developments that include decrease of traffic jams and congestion followed by a decrease in air pollution and noise levels, lower energy consumption, reduction in travel times, improved accessibility for people with disabilities, and increased public space available while promoting the use of bicycle and walking in a safe, cleaner environment.
Dr. Ryan Sinclair, Stephanie Vivanco, Ryan Atencio
Panel Discussion: Tuesday, November 15, 2:20-3:40 p.m.
"Community Engagement Methods in Building Healthy Communities"
Abstract
In disadvantaged areas of the riverside county, many families use septic systems as a means for disposal of wastewater. This technology normally works well, but in many of these communities, it faces major operational challenges due to the percolation fields built over dense bedrock. Some of these areas have significant problems with puddles, ponding and occasional home flooding. In the rainy season, residents are convinced that every puddle in the area is raw sewage from inadequately designed septic tanks. A crowd sourcing methodology is used to network communities in need with effective outreach programs. The community outreach strategies are participatory and evidence based with real data as outputs that the community can later use to justify applications for government funds to mitigate the problem.
Sharlene Gozalians
Featured Speaker: Tuesday, November 15, 2:20-3:40 p.m.
"Community Engagement Methods in Building Healthy Communities"
Abstract
Minority communities are at a higher risk for chronic diseases related to obesity because they lack access to stores that have affordable, fresh, nutritious foods that are necessary for a healthy diet. Through a community based participatory research technique, photovoice was used to analyze and further create discussion among youth regarding the helping and barrier factors in accessing healthy food in their community. Furthermore, GIS was used to map the perceptions of youth regarding the concentration of food establishments and compared to existing maps.