HEALTHY EATING ACTIVE LIVING CONVERGENCE PARTNERSHIP
 Working Together to Create Healthy People in Healthy Places
Our environments determine our health.
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 in both the food environment - including how food is grown, processed, distributed, and sold - and the physical environment - from how neighborhoods are built to the transportation systems that serve them. There is widespread recognition that physical and food environments are inextricably linked, and that - together - they can foster or inhibit our ability to eat well and thrive.
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.
The Healthy Eating Active Living Convergence Partnership also recognizes that to improve food and activity environments, existing disparities must be addressed. Therefore, the Partnership aims to strenghten and accelerate collaborative efforts among practitioners, policymakers, funders, and advocates to support healthy eating and active living.

The Convergence Partnership will send out periodic updates on new publications and program developments. Go to the Contact Us page to sign up to receive these updates or to submit questions about the Partnership.

New Publication!
Healthy, Equitable Transportation Policy: Recommendations and Research
In an effort to further illuminate the opportunities and barriers transportation policy creates for building healthy communities, PolicyLink and Prevention Institute published an edited volume with details and depth into the intersection of transportation, equity and health. The publication is composed of chapters written by leading academics and advocates from across the nation covering topics from public transportation, walking and bicycling, to safety and economic development. The book highlights key policy solutions and provides background on the federal surface transportation policy –a key opportunity at our fingertips today. 

To view the book in its entirety, click on this link: Healthy, Equitable Transportation Policy: Recommendations and Research

To view a summary of this book’s findings, please view The Transportation Prescription, a synthesis of the books research and recommendations.


Recent Updates
The Transportation Prescription: Bold New Ideas for Transportation Reform in America
Transportation is the lifeblood of communities. It connects us to jobs, grocery stores, hospitals and other essential goods and services. This report shows how equitable transportation policies and investments can improve public health, expand economic opportunity, protect environmental quality and strengthen all communities.The report draws on research from the book Healthy, Equitable Transportation Policy: Recommendations and Research, authored by academics and advocates from across the nation. 

Prevention & Wellness Memo
PolicyLink and the Prevention Institute have co-written and released a memo for the Obama administration with recommendations on how prevention and wellness funds in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act can maximize health and equity benefits for all. To read the Prevention and Wellness memo, click here.
Transportation & Health Toolkit
The impacts of transportation policy on health are well-documented. Traffic crashes, air pollution, physical inactivity, limited access to healthy foods and medical care are only some of the ways transportation impacts health. The toolkit includes presentations from leading experts, data on transportations impact on health, local case studies, policy recommendations and advocacy opportunities.  Click here to access the Transportation & Health Toolkit
Healthy People, Healthy Places: Directions for Improving Community, Individual, and Economic Health - Memo to Obama Transition Team
With a new administration comes the opportunity to re-envision the best ways to advance our nation's health and well-being. Prevention Institute and PolicyLink -- engaged by the Healthy Eating, Active Living Convergence Partnership -- have identified clear pathways -- from promoting transportation strategies supportive of health to addressing the need for comprehensive violence prevention -- and presented them in a memo (pdf version) to the transition team of President Obama.  Click here to access the memo on Change.gov. 

The Kresge FoundationThe latest partner -- Kresge Foundation --  also seeks to influence the quality of life for future generations by advancing environmental stability and providing opportunities for healthy living in underserved communities.
 
Leading National Foundations and Health Care Organizations Make Unprecedented Call for Investment in Prevention

Leaders of six of the nation’s top foundations announced a joint call for prevention measures to be central to the reform of our national health systems.

In a letter released August 17, leaders at The California Endowment, The Kresge Foundation, Nemours, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and W.K. Kellogg Foundation and a top official at Kaiser Permanente , wrote that community prevention measures like improved access to healthy food and physical activity will save both lives and money.

As Americans and Congress debate how best to reform our health systems, the letter emphasizes how vital community-level prevention measures are making Americans healthier for the long-term. Read the full letter here (PDF).

Click here to download the press release, Leading Health Foundations Say Prevention is Vital to Health Systems Reform.