People thrive when they earn living wages and live in communities with parks and playgrounds, grocery stores selling nutritious food, and neighbors who know one another. Without a healthy environment, people are more likely to suffer from obesity or one of the many chronic diseases plaguing the United States: diabetes, asthma, and heart disease. Preventing disease and creating healthy neighborhoods requires change. Advocates from various fields are beginning to see how their work can enhance progress in other fields, and how their efforts can foster policy and environmental changes that help families and children lead healthier lives. In this webinar, we explored what it means to implement environmental and policy change strategies. Each panelists discussed innovative strategies they are implementing to create healthy communities. They touched on the successes and challenges to such efforts, and offered lessons learned.

Featured Speakers:

• Loel Solomon, Community Health Initiatives, Kaiser Permanente (powerpoint)
• Rajiv Bhatai, San Francisco Department of Public Health (powerpoint)
• Yael Lehmann, The Food Trust (powerpoint)

Health and place are inextricably linked. People are healthy when the places they live in support health. But the systems that shape communities and health are complex, from how food is grown, processed, distributed, and sold to how neighborhoods are built to the transportation systems that serve them. Creating healthy, equitable communities requires the broad expertise and influence of funders, advocates, and practitioners working across multiple fields to change these systems. This webinar explored the importance of engaging partners that extend beyond health. We heard about initiatives that involve collaboration across a broad spectrum of fields, including health, urban planning, transportation, food and sustainable agriculture, and community/economic development.

Featured Speakers:

• David D. Fukuzawa, Program Director, Kresge Foundation (powerpoint)
• Chetrice Gillon, Special Project Launch Manager, Detroit Department of Health and Wellness Promotion, Bureau of Substance, Prevention Treatment and Recovery (powerpoint)
• Jill Fuglister, Co-Director, Coalition for a Livable Future (powerpoint)

Research Your Community is a new mapping tool available on the Healthy Food Access Portal that can help individuals and organizations better understand the communities in which they are working in to improve access to healthy food.

The tool can also be a valuable resource for your advocacy and fundraising efforts. The grocery landscape is ever changing, and data is one of many ways to paint a picture of a community’s need for healthy food access interventions. This webinar will train users about how to effectively leverage this new tool.

CDFIs are mission-driven organizations that work in economically distressed communities underserved by conventional financial institutions and capital markets. CDFIs have taken the lead across the country providing financing for healthy food retail and food system development. This webinar will introduce the audience to CDFIs and feature different financial products that CDFIs can use to finance your healthy food projects and provide examples of successful projects.

In honor of Food Day 2013, the Healthy Food Access Portal held a food policy 101 webinar which brought together community leaders and activists from throughout the country to share strategies for improving access to healthy foods. Webinar speakers discussed the best way to harness the power of community to create policy change at the local, state, and federal levels. The webinar addressed a range of topics including why healthy food access is important, the role that food policy councils, community leaders, and local government can play in making real policy change, and how to engage community to improve food access and quality.

Advocacy efforts to improve access to healthy food at the local, state, and federal level have led to the creation of financing programs to support healthy food retail in underserved communities nationwide.

One key effort, Voices for Healthy Kids Initiative, led by the American Heart Association and The Food Trust, is advocating for state-wide policies to promote healthy food financing and corner store programs in key states across the country. This webinar will provide an overview of the Voices for Healthy Kids Initiative and discuss how advocates and community leaders can tap into resources to support state-level healthy food access efforts. Experts will discuss key successes from the field and share best practices.

With so many people, especially low-income people, affected by diet-related health conditions, building a connection between healthy foods and the doctor's office may be one of the most effective ways to improve health outcomes.

 Learn how you can develop an equitable food hub in your own community.  This webinar highlights how food hub operations are creating a more equitable and inclusive food system and discuss lessons learned and strategies for success.