Los Angeles Receives Overall Gold Medal from CityHealth

LOS ANGELES – The City of Los Angeles is one of five cities across the nation to receive a gold medal rating by de Beaumont Foundation’s CityHealth Initiative for policies that improve residents’ lives. The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health (Public Health) partners with the City of Los Angeles on public health priorities that focus on policies to improve people’s well-being and promote health.

“Public Health is committed to collaborating with our colleagues both within and outside the traditional health sector to achieve our goals of healthy people living in healthy communities,” said Barbara Ferrer, PhD, MPH, MEd, Director of Public Health. “I am pleased that the City of LA and the County of Los Angeles are receiving this recognition for our collaborative work in advancing public health priorities.”

Public Health works with the City of Los Angeles on policies that promote walking and active living, and to implement the City’s Plan for A Healthy Los Angeles.

“A healthy city measures itself not only by life expectancy, but by access to nutritious food and park space, by traffic policies that reduce serious accidents, by childcare affordability for working parents, and by the beauty of its neighborhoods,” said Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti. “We passed the Plan for a Healthy Los Angeles two years ago because I am strongly committed to moving those values forward in the 21st century. This assessment of L.A., as one of America’s healthiest big cities, speaks to the effectiveness of our work.”

According to CityHealth, out of the 40 largest cities, Los Angeles is among five of the nation’s leading cities when it comes to policies that improve the health and well-being of its residents. CityHealth’s two-year assessment focused on identifying policies in nine general areas: employment benefits, education, affordable housing, active living and transportation, public safety, tobacco control, clean indoor air, food safety, and nutrition.

CityHealth identified Los Angeles County’s restaurant grading system that was adopted by ordinance by the City of Los Angeles and most of the other cities in the county, as the gold standard of policies for retail food grading systems.

For more information, visit the CityHealth website: www.cityhealth.org.

The Department of Public Health is committed to protecting and improving the health of over 10 million residents of Los Angeles County. Through a variety of programs, community partnerships and services, Public Health oversees environmental health, disease control, and community and family health. Public Health comprises nearly 4,000 employees and has an annual budget exceeding $900 million. To learn more about the LA County Department of Public Health and the work they do, visit PublicHealth.LACounty.gov, and follow Public Health on social media at twitter.com/LAPublicHealth, facebook.com/LAPublicHealth, and youtube.com/LAPublicHealth.

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