- What do urban gardens, reduced alcohol and tobacco signage, and a community bus system have to do with preventing violence?
- Addressing the intersection: How preventing violence can prevent chronic disease
- Tool for heath and resilience in vulnerable environments: A tool for addressing the social determinants of health
- Urban networks to increase thriving youth (UNITY) - Preventing violence for healthy child development
- THRIVE: A toolkit for community-led initiatives to address health equity
- Building capacity for policy, systems, and environmental change: The community prevention readiness self-assessment
- UNITY: Lessons learned from a six year initiative to prevent urban violence using a multi-sectoral public health approach
- Preventing violence as a public health priority: UNITY, an urban initiative
- Addressing the intersection: Preventing violence and promoting healthy eating and active living
What do urban gardens, reduced alcohol and tobacco signage, and a community bus system have to do with preventing violence?
Monday, October 31, 2011: 10:30 AM -12:00 PM (Session), 11:10 AM (Presentation)
Session: 3149 Violence and self-inflicted injury 1
Type of presentation: Oral
Abstract number: 247184
Hotel: WCC, Room 143B
The growing recognition of the impact of violence on health outcomes, like chronic disease, presents an opportunity to bring attention to efforts in preventing violence. Healthy food and activity practitioners are increasingly noting that violence undermines the effectiveness of their efforts to prevent chronic disease. It negatively affects where people live and shop and whether children are allowed to play outside or walk to school. Violence also alters the community environment by reducing social connectedness and disincentivizing community investments such as healthy food retail. To understand the relationship between violence and healthy eating and activity, as well as community-based solutions to address these complex issues, Prevention Institute conducted interviews and strategy sessions with community leaders and prevention experts. Furthermore, a pilot program, started in January 2010, brought together advocates and practitioners from multiple fields to implement policy and environmental approaches to address the intersection of issues. This presentation will delineate the links between violence and healthy eating and active living and share the outcomes of the pilots, highlighting how prevention efforts are helping to increase community connectedness and resident engagement and prevent violence, fostering peace and health in their neighborhoods. The presenter will discuss how efforts like the revitalization of a local park to provide safe spaces for youth and seniors and an urban garden apprenticeship and training program for youth in the juvenile justice system are increasing safety and improving the health of communities. The presentation will also discuss potential roles for violence prevention advocates in this cross-cutting work.
More information: http://apha.confex.com/apha/139am/webprogram/Paper247184.html
Addressing the intersection: How preventing violence can prevent chronic disease
Monday, October 31, 2011: 10:30 AM Board 3
Session: 3095, Healthy communities promote healthy minds & bodies
Type of presentation: Poster
Abstract Number: 242240
Hotel: WCC, Room: Exhibit Hall D/E
Place and community conditions significantly affect health. People lead healthier lives in communities with walkable and bikeable streets, safe parks and playgrounds, grocery stores selling healthy foods and beverages, and neighbors who know one another. Healthy food and physical activity practitioners and advocates increasingly note that violence undermines the effectiveness of their efforts to prevent chronic disease. Further, high rates of community violence disproportionately impact vulnerable populations, contributing heavily to inequities in health. To understand the relationship between violence and healthy eating and activity, as well as community-based solutions to address these complex issues, Prevention Institute conducted qualitative research consisting of interviews and strategic sessions with community leaders and prevention experts. Additionally, the Institute coordinates six pilot projects, supported by the Convergence Partnership, to reduce violence and promote healthy eating and activity at the neighborhood level through innovative policy and environmental change strategies. Launched in January 2010, the project brings together non-traditional partners, including youth, community and grassroots organizations representing the fields of violence prevention, healthy eating, and/or physical activity, and local public health departments. Participants who attend this session will gain a better understanding about the links between violence and healthy eating and active living. Additionally, they will learn about the community pilot initiative, including successes and lessons learned from multi-field collaboration and environmental changes undertaken to address violence and chronic disease.
More information: http://apha.confex.com/apha/139am/webprogram/Paper242240.html
Tool for heath and resilience in vulnerable environments: A tool for addressing the social determinants of health
Monday, October 31, 2011: 4:30 PM Board 8
Session: 3406, Social Determinants and Environment
Type of presentation: Poster
Abstract number: 245281
Hotel: WCC, Room: Exhibit Hall D/E
The Tool for Health and Resilience in Vulnerable Environments (THRIVE) seeks to enable the raising of community consciousness of their critical role in addressing social determinants of health. The original THRIVE tool was developed with funding from the Office of Minority Health (HHS) between 2002 and 2004. The tool was successfully piloted in an urban, suburban and rural setting between 2004 and 2007. In 2010, a partnership between the National Network for Public Health Institutes and Prevention Institute received additional support from OMH to update the tool, develop a training for health practitioners to coach communities across the nation in locally led efforts to address the social determinants of health, and also to update the toolkit that is available on-line. A focus of THRIVE II is to develop appropriate training methods that build on the diverse strengths of communities across the nation and to use these opportunities to increase the public understanding of the social determinants of health. Attendees will be presented with the work to date, lessons learned, and how these learnings have been incorporated into THRIVE II. Results from THRIVE I and the first training sessions from THRIVE II will be shared as well as the plan for increasing community-focused dissemination of project results and tools for local use.
More information: http://apha.confex.com/apha/139am/webprogram/Paper245281.html
Urban networks to increase thriving youth (UNITY) - Preventing violence for healthy child development
Monday, October 31, 2011: 4:30 PM - 6:00PM (Session), 5:35 PM (Presentation)
Session: 3421.0, Effects of Community Violence on children and adolescents
Type of presentation: Oral
Abstract number: 249699
Hotel: Grant Hyatt, Room: Independence Ballroom B
Violence leads to death, injuries and chronic disease, and it poses a serious health challenge for young people, especially children and adolescents in U.S. cities. When young people witness or suffer from violence, their brains develop differently as a result. The parts of the brain responsible for controlling impulses, regulating stress, solving problems, and empathizing are rewired, for example, and survival skills are developed at the expense of learning and social skills. These changes compromise children's health in the short and long term through various pathways. Violence also perpetuates the health, social and economic disparities in communities, and disproportionately affects young people of color. Safe communities enable children to play, learn and grow up healthy. This session will introduce the innovative public health approach of Urban Networks to Increase Thriving Youth (UNITY), a CDC funded initiative to prevent violence affecting youth. The presenters will highlight strategies in the UNITY Policy Platform that support stable and nurturing relationships, and that reduce young children's exposure to violence so that behavior is not learned in the first place. The UNITY Policy Platform was developed in collaboration with representatives from cities across the country via a peer-learning network. The UNITY Policy Platform describes what needs to be in place on the ground to prevent community violence, and it also delineates the supports that cities say they need for efforts to be successful and sustainable. Multi-sectoral collaboration yields valuable tools and resources for communities, and a public health approach to preventing violence works.
More information: http://apha.confex.com/apha/139am/webprogram/Paper249699.html
THRIVE: A toolkit for community-led initiatives to address health equity
Tuesday, November 1, 2011: 8:30 AM-10:00 AM (Session); 8:35 AM (Presentation)
Session: 4073, A social justice perspective on teaching and capacity building to promote the health of communities
Type of presentation: Oral
Abstract number: 241201
Hotel: WCC Room: 101
This session will critically examine teaching and capacity building, both inside and outside of traditional academic settings, that promotes the health of communities. Potential topics include critical approaches to pedagogy about: who has the privilege to speak for communities; promoting links between community development and health; the role of community health centers as institutions for community capacity-building; dealing with changing boundaries of communities, for example related to immigration and migration; dealing with divisions within communities; who defines community and different definitions of what is community; capacity building to deal with environmental change and community, for example environmental justice, global warming; communities in context, for example, geopolitical or economic; and educating students and communities for community capacity development.
More information: http://apha.confex.com/apha/139am/webprogram/Session31554.html
Building capacity for policy, systems, and environmental change: The community prevention readiness self-assessment
Tuesday, November 1, 2011: 10:30 AM-12:00 PM (Session); 10:30 AM (Presentation)
Session: 4108, Leadership Development Models in Public Health Practice Settings
Type of presentation: Oral
Abstract number: 250229
Hotel: WCC Room: 208B
In the past two years, we have seen extensive federal support for community health and prevention. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and the Affordable Care Act have provided millions of dollars to local and state health departments to improve access to healthy food, provide opportunities for physical activity, and prevent the harmful impacts of tobacco. Health departments across the country are implementing policy, systems and environmental change (PSE) efforts through the Communities Putting Prevention to Work initiative. Looking to the future, local and state health departments and community groups are asking themselves, "How can we prepare ourselves for future federal funding opportunities?"
Prevention Institute serves as a core technical assistance provider to CPPW grantees and has provided training and consultation to both CPPW and non-CPPW groups across the country that are working to create healthier environments. Prevention Institute staff developed the Community Prevention Readiness Self-Assessment to allow groups to be proactive and conduct a candid evaluation of their current capacity to engage in environmental change. Key elements of the assessment include: taking a comprehensive approach, building a strong collaboration, fostering strong interdisciplinary partnerships, identifying core leadership, advancing health equity, and building capacity among staff and partners.
This session will introduce participants to the Community Prevention Readiness Self-Assessment and provide examples of community prevention readiness in action. The audience will also gain practical input as to how they can enhance their efforts to be ever more effective in engaging in community prevention and prepared for future funding opportunities.
More information: http://apha.confex.com/apha/139am/webprogram/Paper250229.html
UNITY: Lessons learned from a six year initiative to prevent urban violence using a multi-sectoral public health approach
Tuesday, November 1, 2011: 10:30 AM -12:00PM (Session)
Session: 4118, UNITY: Lessons learned from a six year initiative to prevent urban violence using a multi-sectoral public health approach
Type of presentation: Panel
Session number: Special session
Hotel: WCC, Room: 143B
List the key characteristics of a public health approach to violence. Explain why public health is uniquely equipped to lead efforts to prevent violence and create safe communities. Identify at least three strategies that can prevent community violence.
More information: http://apha.confex.com/apha/139am/webprogram/Session33269.html
Preventing violence as a public health priority: UNITY, an urban initiative
Tuesday, November 1, 2011: 10:30 AM -12:00PM (Session), 10:30 AM (Presentation)
Session: 4118, UNITY: Lessons learned from a six year initiative to prevent urban violence using a multi-sectoral public health approach
Type of presentation: Oral
Session number: 250024
Hotel: WCC Room: 143B
Violence leads to death, injuries and chronic disease, and poses a serious health challenge for young people. Urban Networks to Increase Thriving Youth (UNITY), a CDC funded initiative, is a national effort that supports U.S. cities to shift local practices to emphasize a multi-sector public health approach to reducing violence. UNITY promotes an innovative multi-sector public health approach to prevent violence before it happens. UNITY's assessment of violence prevention activities in the U.S. found that cities with the most coordination also have the lowest rates of violence. Additionally, the assessment found that local public health departments are not generally involved in efforts to prevent violence, nor do they see themselves as a crucial partner. Given this context, UNITY is currently involved in 23 cities across the U.S. attempting to advocate for a larger role for public health in local violence prevention efforts.
This presentation will highlight strategies from the newly-released UNITY Policy Platform and discuss how the policy platform was developed in collaboration with representatives from cities across the country via a peer-learning network. The platform is a policy document that describes for local officials what needs to be in place on the ground to prevent community violence, and identifies the local supports that are needed for efforts to be successful and sustainable. The UNITY Policy Platform is helping to build momentum for strengthening national and state support of local initiatives, and collaboration can indeed yield valuable tools and resources for public health professionals working to prevent violence.
More information: http://apha.confex.com/apha/139am/webprogram/Paper250024.html
Addressing the intersection: Preventing violence and promoting healthy eating and active living
Tuesday, November 1, 2011: 2:30 PM-4:00 PM (3:10pm Presentation)
Session: 4274: Addressing the Intersection: Preventing Violence and Promoting Healthy Eating and Active Living
Type of presentation: Oral
Abstract number: 4274
Hotel: Renaissance, Room: Meeting Room 15
Communities are transforming their local landscapes to foster health and safety, and these local successes have the potential to influence policies and structures beyond the local level. Through a panel that will include representatives from policy and practice in an emerging interdisciplinary field that addresses violence and chronic disease, this session will illustrate how innovative community-led efforts can shape national-level strategy. Panelists have brought together the previously siloed fields of healthy eating and activity and preventing violence and have raised the priority and profile of preventing violence at the local and national levels. With funding from Kaiser Permanente, Prevention Institute produced Addressing the Intersection: Preventing Violence and Promoting Healthy Eating and Active Living, a report that explores the inter-relationship between violence and healthy eating and activity and supports practitioners and advocates in their work to prevent chronic disease in communities heavily impacted by violence. Translating this research presented in the report into community-level practice, the Convergence Partnership supports an innovative pilot project in six communities across the country to address the intersection. Starting in 2010, the project brought together organizations and leaders from multiple fields to explore promising policy and environmental change strategies that reduce violence and promote healthy eating and activity environments simultaneously. The report and pilot initiative have catalyzed a national dialogue regarding the role of safety in community health and has begun to inform a national approach for community prevention. Building upon the increasing interest in this issue, in February 2011, Prevention Institute convened a congressional briefing on Capitol Hill in partnership with the offices of Senator Tom Harkin and Representative Barbara Lee and six national organizations, including APHA. The briefing provided a deeper understanding about the relationship between violence and healthy eating and physical activity and information that could inform policy decisions to prevent violence while improving healthy food and activity environments. In addition to influencing federal policy, the growing research base and community-level efforts can also impact the work of large federal agencies, such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
More information: http://apha.confex.com/apha/139am/webprogram/Session33089.html
