PLACE Program
3530 Wilshire Blvd, 8th Floor,
Los Angeles, CA
90010
(213) 351-7825
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Articles & Reports: Active Transportation
SafeTREC: Transportation and
Health – Policy Interventions for Safer, Healthier People
and Communities
This report provides policy recommendations in the following
areas: policies that improve the environment and
environmental health; policies that enhance community design
and promote active transportation; policies that reduce
motor vehicle-related injuries and fatalities. The report is
authored by the Safe Transportation Research and Education
Center (SafeTREC)
at UC Berkeley and was made possible by a cooperative
agreement between the Centers
for Disease Control and
Prevention and Partnership
for Prevention.
CDC:
Recommended Community
Strategies and Measurements to Prevent Obesity in the United
States
Recent reports have shown that approximately two-thirds of
U.S. adults and one-fifth of U.S. children are obese or
overweight. This trend is a growing epidemic and is
dependent upon many built environment factors. For this
reason, it is important to promote healthy communities and
lifestyles. A report by the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention identified and recommended a set of strategies
and associated measurements that communities and local
governments can use to plan and monitor environmental and
policy-level changes for obesity prevention. It provides a
resource of these policies and recommendations to help
address this problem on a community level.
Active Transportation for
America:
A Case for Increased Federal
Investment in Bicycling and Walking
Active Transportation for America makes the case and
quantifies the national benefits—for the first time—that
increased federal funding in bicycling and walking
infrastructure would provide tens of billions of dollars in
benefits to all Americans. By making active transportation a
viable option for everyday travel, we will cost-effectively
reduce oil dependence, climate pollution and obesity rates
while providing more and better choices for getting around.
Creating Healthy Environments:
Case Studies of Local Health Departments
What strategies, relationships, and roles are local health
departments using to promote healthy built environments?
Three case studies highlight the successes, challenges, and
important lessons from three public health departments in
California. First, the profile of the
Los
Angeles County Department of Public Health describes how
the PLACE Program became established and how the County
supported the City of El Monte to add a Health Element to
its General Plan. The case study on
Shasta County examines how a modest grant
and community involvement allowed the rural county to secure
a Safe Routes to School grant. Shasta County also used this
process to develop a method for evaluating how new
development could affect health. Third,
Contra Costa County’s Department of Public Health teamed
up with the local transportation agency to educate
engineers, planners, and residents about the benefits of
traffic calming for health. Each report addresses the
successes, challenges, and capacity-building steps involved
in each County’s work to improve the health of its residents
through the built environment.
Bicycle Friendly Communities:
Lessons from LA County Guide
Many cities, organizations, and advocates in L.A. County are
promoting and supporting bicycling as an effective response
to obesity, physical inactivity and our reliance on the
automobile. A number of bicycle-friendly initiatives have
been started, and progress can be seen in communities
throughout the county. The Bicycle Friendly Communities:
Lessons from LA County Guide ( was created to reinforce that
progress and help more communities move toward
bicycle-friendliness. It was written for anyone who wants to
bring the benefits of bicycle-friendliness to his or her
community – that is, for anyone who wants to use bicycling
as a tool to make the built environment more people-focused,
create conditions that support access to daily physical
activity, and develop a more sustainable, livable, and
healthy community.
"How to Increase Bicycling for
Daily Travel
and
Getting the Wheels Rolling"
These two recent reports from Active Living Research and
Changelab Solutions, respectively, offer insight into the
tools that planning and public health departments have at
their disposal to increase bicycling in their communities.
“How to Increase Bicycling for Daily Travel” focuses on the
most effective strategies for encouraging bicycling, such as
integrated with public transit service. “Getting the Wheels
Rolling” is intended to help policymakers understand the
best ways to use laws and policies for making change on the
ground.
Articles & Reports: Housing
Housing and Health: New Opportunities for
Dialogue and Action
This report, from ChangeLab Solutions, Center for Housing
Policy, National Center for Healthy Housing, and Trust for
America’s Health describes the relationship between housing
policy and health. Housing conditions can affect
physiological health in a straightforward ways through
exposing residents to dangerous chemicals, like lead. Other
attributes of housing that affect health include physical
neighborhood characteristics, which affect walkability and
access to healthy food, and neighborhood social
characteristics, like poverty and crime. Beyond describing
these issues, this concept paper makes recommendations for
addressing these issues through policy.
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