Healthy Community Design News

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1 Healthy Community Design News January 2016 Dear Healthy Community Design News Subscribers, Happy New Year! Public health and parks and recreation departments have many goals in common that could be leveraged to make both more effective, says Dee Merriam, CDC s Healthy Community Design Initiative s community planner. In her January/February 2016 Journal of Environmental Health article, Parks: An Opportunity to Leverage Environmental Health, she shares resources and a series of questions environmental health staff can use to explore collaboration opportunities with their local parks and recreation programs. In the January 2016 issue of the Federal Highway Administration s Fostering Livable Communities Newsletter, American Planning Association s Anna Ricklin discusses Safe Routes to Parks Concept Gains Momentum with Ideas from APA and Funding from CDC. If you are conducting a Health Impact Assessment (HIA), CDC s Environmental Public Health Tracking Network data can help. The Tracking Network is an excellent data source for environmental hazards, exposures, and health conditions that can be a valuable asset to the HIA process. Read more about it here. Until next time, keep up the great work! Charles Green, CGreen1@cdc.gov The groundwork of all happiness is health. Leigh Hunt Upcoming Meetings and Conferences

2 January 31-February 3, 2016, Active Living Research Conference Clearwater Beach, FL February 11-13, 2016, New Partners for Smart Growth Portland, OR March 7-9, 2016, Public Private Partnership Conference Dallas, TX April 2-5, 2016, American Planning Association Planning Conference Seattle, WA April 3-6, 2016, Play Conference 2016 Clemson, SC Call for Papers/Proposals/Applications/Nominations Call for Applications: CDC Summer 2016 Intern Program in Environmental Health The paid interns will work in CDC s National Center of Environmental Health: Collegiate Leaders in Environmental Health (undergraduate students): (deadline January 27, 2016) Graduates in Environmental Health (graduate students): (deadline February 10, 2016) Call for Applications: Partners for Places Spring 2016 Grant Cycle (deadline January 29, 2016) A matching grant program, Partners for Places, creates opportunities for cities and counties in the United States and Canada to improve communities by building partnerships between local government sustainability offices and place-based foundations. Call for Proposals: Pro Walk/Pro Bike/Pro Place 2016 Conference (deadline January 29, 2016) The conference theme is Moving towards a Healthier World, and proposals are sought for the conference focus areas of mobility, governance, health, and resilience. The conference

3 will convene September 12-15, 2016, in Vancouver BC, Canada. Call for Nominations: The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Physical Activity Guidelines Advisory Committee (deadline February 5, 2016) The Committee will examine the 2008 Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans, take into consideration new scientific evidence and current resource documents, and then develop a scientific advisory report that outlines its science-based recommendations and rationale. The scientific report will be submitted to the Secretary of HHS and used by the federal government to develop the 2nd edition of the Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans. Call for Applications: HUD Planning Grants to Help Transform Communities (deadline February 9, 2016) Funding is available to help local communities across the country redevelop severely distressed public and HUD-assisted housing and transform surrounding neighborhoods. The funding announcement introduces an additional, innovative component to the Choice Neighborhoods Planning Grant, called Planning and Action Grants. Choice Neighborhoods Planning Grant funds are available for public housing authorities, local governments, nonprofit organizations, and tribal entities. Applicants must submit a completed electronic application through Call for Nominations: Hubsmith Safe Routes Champion Award (deadline February 10, 2016) The Safe Routes to School National Partnership (SRTSNP) has created this award in remembrance of Deb Hubsmith s life and work. It will be presented to a nominated individual who exemplifies Deb s leadership, commitment and positive impact on Safe Routes to School advocacy and advancement in his/her community. Read more about Deb, the founder of SRTSNP, here. Call for Applications: The National Creative Placemaking Fund (deadline March 2, 2016; must register February 16, 2016) The Fund is seeking applications that: 1. Focus on a neighborhood or other geographic community 2. Are looking to work on a community challenge related to agriculture/food; economic development; education/youth; environment/energy; health; housing, immigration; public safety; transportation; or workforce development 3. Have a way that artists, arts organizations, and/or arts activities can help address that challenge 4. Will have a way of knowing whether the project has made progress on the challenge.

4 More information is available here. Call for Nominations: The James L. Oberstar Safe Routes to School Award (deadline February 18, 2016) This award recognizes outstanding achievement by a local Safe Routes to School (SRTS) program that has improved safety or increased the number of elementary and/or middle school students who safely walk and bicycle to school. Call for Papers: Special issue of Journal of Transport and Health: Walking and Walkability: A review of the evidence on health (deadline February 29, 2016) All papers should be submitted via the Journal of Transport and Health online system. Choose the article type SI: Walking & Walkability. For author guidelines, please visit the journal website at Call for Applications: 2016 Main Street Innovation Award (deadline March 4, 2016) This award, given by the Main Street Center, recognizes a local Main Street or Coordinating Program for an innovative project, event, or initiative that made a significant impact on a community, county, region or state. Call for Applications: ASPPH/NHTSA Public Health Fellowship Program (deadline March 10, 2016) The program offer recent graduates from ASPPH-member schools and programs of public health an opportunity to gain experience in injury prevention and motor vehicle and highway safety issues with the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT), National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) in Washington, DC. Upcoming Webinars and Workshops January 27, 2016, Stepping Up to Make a Difference: The Vital Role of Anchor Institutions in Community Health Improvement (presented by Dialogue4Health) Leaders and partners from anchor health institutions will explain why they are working outside their own walls to make lasting contributions to the health and wellbeing of the regions they serve, how their work benefits not just their organizations but the surrounding areas they serve, and how it ultimately improves population health.

5 March 7-8, 2016, The HIA Practitioner Workshop, Oakland, CA 20%20HIP&utm_medium= &utm_source=Eloqua Sponsored by the Society of Practitioners of Public Health Impact, this two-day workshop is intended for current Health Impact Assessment practitioners who are interested in strategic field building. Attendees will learn and share ideas through presentations and further the practice of HIA in small working groups. Registration is limited to 100 participants. Job and Fellowship Openings Transportation Director, Atlanta BeltLine (deadline January 22, 2016) Inc-Transportation-Director pdf Project Manager, Active Living By Design (no closing date) The Alliance for Biking & Walking Job Board contains job listings related to biking and walking. Opinions from Around the World Should We Remove All the Traffic Lights from Our City Centres? by Beulah Maud Devaney (CityMetric, January 8, 2016) Obviously, it s not possible to blame all road rage on traffic lights. But there is enough of a link that, in 2008, researchers developed smart traffic lights. This invention was prompted by studies which had found that incessant braking and accelerating caused a spike in road rage. Abrupt changes in speed, and uncertainty over when the lights would change, infuriated drivers and led to dangerous driving. Impacts of Self Driving cars on Bicycle Planning (Good Urban Places, January 8, 2016) Instead of having to create separate spaces for different types of street-users because they are incompatible in some way, handing over control of vehicles to computers surely presents the opportunity for safe, low stress shared spaces. There are many planning advantages to this including narrower, more friendly feeling streets, making more efficient use of space. News

6 The Dutch Love Cycling So Much That Their Bike Lanes Can't Cope (CityLab, January 11, 2016) According to the country s SWOV Institute for Road Safety Research, cycling infrastructure in Holland is getting seriously overloaded. The Dutch lane system may well be exemplary compared to most other countries, but as bike paths fill to capacity during rush hour, crashes are becoming more frequent. Top 10 Websites 2015 (Planetizen, January 6, 2016) ?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium= &utm_campaign= Planetizen s annual list of the ten best planning, design, and development websites represents some of the top online resources for news, information, and research on the built environment. Journal Articles Ou JY, Levy JI, Peters JL, Bongiovanni R, Garcia-Soto J, Medina R, Scammell MK. A walk in the park: the influence of urban parks and community violence on physical activity in Chelsea, MA. Int J Environ Res Public Health 2016;13(1):E97. doi: /ijerph Our findings indicate that proximity to any park is not associated with physical activity. However, proximity to the preferred park reported by residents to be conducive for physical activity (with walking paths, large fields, playgrounds for children and tennis courts) was associated with physical activity. Conversely, knowledge of sexual assault or rape in the neighborhood is inversely associated with every type of physical activity (park-based, outdoor, and indoor). Our findings suggest that improvements to the built environment (parks, green spaces) may be hindered by adverse social environments and both are necessary for consideration in the design of public health interventions. AlHasan DM, Eberth JM. An ecological analysis of food outlet density and prevalence of type II diabetes in South Carolina counties. BMC Public Health 2016;16(1):10. doi: /s Studies suggest that the built environment with high numbers of fast food restaurants and convenience stores and low numbers of super stores and grocery stores are related to obesity, type II diabetes mellitus, and other chronic diseases. This ecological analysis showed no associations between fast food restaurants, convenience stores, super stores, or grocery stores densities and the prevalence of type II diabetes. Consideration of environmental, social, and cultural determinants, as well as individual behaviors, is needed in future research. New and Notable Reports/Resources

7 Nelson AC, Ganning J. National study of development outcomes. Portland (OR): National Institute for Transportation and Communities; DEVELOPMENT-OUTCOMES pdf The study finds that bus rapid transit lines can shape real estate and attract jobs if the projects are done right. Roundtable on Environmental Health Sciences, Research, and Medicine; Board on Population Health and Public Health Practice; Institute of Medicine; National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. Bringing public health into urban revitalization: workshop summary. Washington (DC): National Academies Press; On November 10, 2014, the Institute of Medicine's Roundtable on Environmental Health Sciences, Research, and Medicine held a workshop concerning the ways in which the urban environment, conceived broadly from factors such as air quality and walkability to factors such as access to fresh foods and social support systems, can affect health. Participants explored the various opportunities to reimagine the built environment in a city and to increase the role of health promotion and protection during the process of urban revitalization. Bringing Public Health into Urban Revitalization summarizes the presentations and discussions from this workshop. In a disordered mind, as in a disordered body, soundness of health is impossible. Cicero Healthy Community Design News is compiled and managed by Charles L. Green, MA, MFA, CNU-A Health Communication Specialist Healthy Community Design Initiative Division of Emergency and Environmental Health Services National Center for Environmental Health Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 4770 Buford Highway, Mailstop F-58 Chamblee, Georgia W: E: CGreen1@cdc.gov To subscribe to the CDC-facilitated Healthy Community Design News Listserv, go to To unsubscribe, send an to LISTSERV@LISTSERV.CDC.GOV with the following command in the body of the SIGNOFF LIVABILITY-GROUP. DISCLAIMER: The contents of this e-newsletter do not necessarily represent the official views of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), or the federal government. CDC, HHS, or the federal government is not responsible for the contents of the information contained in this e-newsletter. Links to nonfederal organizations found in this newsletter are provided solely as a service to our readers. These links do not

8 constitute an endorsement of these organizations or their programs by CDC or the federal government, and none should be inferred. CDC is not responsible for the content of the individual organization web pages found at these links.

Healthy Community Design News

Healthy Community Design News May 2016 Dear Healthy Community Design News Subscribers, Reducing greenhouse gas emissions, assessing a big rail project, creating a public space for healthy play and learning: