Articles & Interviews
Job Creation Benefits from Bike Lanes
There are lots of tangible benefits to bike lanes. They reduce traffic congestion, lead to better air quality and a healthier citizenry. A new study from the University of Massachusetts Political Economy Research Institute aims to add job creation to the list.
Fact Sheets
Complete Streets: Active Transportation, Safety and Mobility for Individuals of All Ages and Abilities
The complete streets movement aims to develop an interconnected street network that is accessible and safe for users of all ages, abilities and modes of transportation.
Guides
Active Design Guidelines: Promoting Physical Activity and Health in Design
The Active Design Guidelines provides architects and urban designers with a manual of strategies for creating healthier buildings, streets, and urban spaces, based on the latest academic research and best practices in the field.
Health Impact Assessment: Guide for Practice 
The awareness and use of HIA in the United States is rapidly increasing, and this Guide aims to support practitioners in the field, by describing the key tasks and activities for HIA as well as the issues and challenges that arise in the course of practice.
Model Design Manual for Living Streets
The Model Street Design Manual was created during a 2-day writing charrette, which brought together national experts in living streets concepts.
Journal Articles
Physical Activity and Food Environments: Solutions to the Obesity Epidemic
This article is a status report on research on physical activity and food environments, and it suggests how these findings can be used to improve diet and physical activity and to control or reduce obesity.
Research in Progress Database, hosted by the Transportation Research Board
The database acts as an interface between these different levels of institutions, each of which has direct access to routinely update, modify, add and delete information regarding their projects, thus ensuring that users continue to have easy access to accurate information. Health is well represented among these projects: the database contains research projects focusing on pedestrian and motor vehicle safety, air quality, livability, active transportation and other topics.
Links
National Center on Physical Activity and Disability
A monthly publication of the National Center on Physical Activity and Disability (NCPAD)
Issue Briefs
Complete Streets Policy Analysis 2010: A Story of Growing Strength
This report celebrates and documents the rapid growth of Complete Streets policy adoption and provides a standard analysis of the content of the more than 200 written policies adopted before January 1, 2011. It highlights those policies that come closest to achieving the ‘ideal’ of the National Complete Streets Coalition's ten policy elements.
Profiles/Case Studies
Creating Healthy Communities - Success Stories from ACHIEVE
Download the "Creating Healthy Communities - Success Stories from ACHIEVE" document to read about the impact of ACHIEVE policy and environmental change efforts in communities.
Reports
American Planning Association: Planning for Public Health
Report released by the American Planning Association (APA) highlights the results of a web-based survey used to identify draft and adopted comprehensive and sustainability plans that explicitly address public health.
Complete Streets: Best Policy and Implementation Best Practices
This Planners Advisory Service report, a joint project of the American Planning Association and the National Complete Streets Coalition, draws on lessons learned from 30 communities across the country. The report provides insight into successful strategies and practices to create complete streets, including how to build support for complete streets, adopt policies, and integrate the policy into everyday practice.
F as in Fat: How Obesity Threatens America's Future 2011 - Trust for America's Health
Trust for America’ Health (TFAH) and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation released the eighth annual F as in Fat – How Obesity Threatens America’s Future 2011 report. This year’s report examines, for the first time, state-by-state obesity rates over the past twenty years.
Making the Case to Stakeholders: Linking Policy and Environmental Strategies to Health Outcomes
This guide was designed to assist communities to better understand potential outcomes of the policy and environmental change objectives targeting healthy eating and active living.
National Association of City and Transportation Officials: Urban Bikeway Design Guide
Report by the National Association of City and Transportation Officials (NACTO) offers substantive guidance for cities seeking to improve bicycle transportation where competing demands for the use of the right of way presents unique challenges.
National Prevention Strategy
On June 16, 2011 the National Prevention, Health Promotion, and Public Health Council, announced the release of the National Prevention Strategy, a comprehensive plan that will help increase the number of Americans who are healthy at every stage of life.
Prevention for a Healthier America: Investments in Disease Prevention Yield Significant Savings, Stronger Communities
Trust for America's Health concludes that an investment of $10 per person per year in proven community-based disease prevention programs could yield net savings of more than $2.8 billion annually in health care costs in one to 2 years, more than $16 billion annually within 5 years, and nearly $18 billion annually in 10 to 20 years (in 2004 dollars).
Recommended Community Strategies and Measurements to Prevent Obesity in the United States
This report describes the expert panel process that was used to identify 24 recommended strategies for obesity prevention and a suggested measurement for each strategy that communities can use to assess performance and track progress over time.
Strategies for Enhancing the Built Environment to Support Healthy Eating and Active Living
This report, developed by Prevention Institute, outlines a range of organizational practices and public policies being considered to improve the built environment in support of healthy eating and regular physical activity.
Transportation for America: Dangerous by Design
Reports that from 2000 to 2009 more than 47,700 pedestrians were killed in the United States, the equivalent of a jumbo jet full of passengers going down every month.
Transportation and Health: Policy Interventions for Safer, Healthier People and Communities
Partnership for Prevention collaborated with the Safe Transportation Research and Education Center (SafeTREC) at UC Berkeley, Booz Allen Hamilton, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to produce this report examining the effects of transportation policies on public health in three key areas—environment and environmental public health, community design and active transportation, and motor vehicle-related injuries and fatalities.
Research
Do All Children Have Places to be Active?
This synthesis examines the growing body of evidence indicating that racial and ethnic minority, and lower-income, communities do not provide as many built and social environmental supports for physical activity.
Tools
Checklist: How Bikeable is Your Community?
Evaluation Form for Active Recess
A standard evaluation was taken to 20 schools in Boyd and Greenup Counties to observe indoor/outdoor recess.
Leadership for Healthy Communities Action Strategies Toolkit
This toolkit provides targeted strategies, stakeholders, policy and program options, directions on how to start programs, resources that can help inform the process, and examples of how other states and localities have achieved progress.
Transportation and Health Toolkit, developed by APHA
This toolkit is an attempt to build a bridge between the public health and transportation communities, to create a common language for use by public health advocates that ensures our voices are heard by those who need to hear them.
Transportation Health Impact Assessment Toolkit
The Transportation HIA Toolkit provides a framework for public health departments, city planners, project managers, and other stakeholders to conduct HIAs on proposed transportation projects, plans, and policies.
Walk Friendly Communities: Assessment Tool
The Pedestrian and Bicycle Information Center (PBIC) has released an updated community assessment tool for the Walk Friendly Communities (WFC) program.
Webinars
Preemption and Public Health
NPLAN, in collaboration with the Public Health Law Center, hosted a webinar to train public health professionals on preemption concepts. NPLAN has developed several resources that provide public health professionals with the basics of preemption.
