The Los Angeles County Department of
Public Health funded several organizations and
jurisdictions to develop and
implement one or more strategies that will create an
environment where it is convenient, safe and easy for
community members to eat healthfully and participate in
physical activity every day. The grantees included the
City of Los Angeles Planning Department, the Safe Routes
to School National Partnership, Day One Inc, UCLA
Prevention Research Center, the Los Angeles Neighborhood
Land Trust, the YWCA of Greater Los Angeles, Advancement
Project, City of Baldwin Park, the Los Angeles County
Bicycle Coalition, and the City of Lancaster.
The HEAL Initiative grantees pursued a variety of
strategies including, but not limited to, active
transportation plans; increasing access to healthy
foods; and safe routes to school plans. The HEAL
Initiative was funded by the Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention as part of the U.S. Department of Health
and Human Services' Community Transformation Grants
initiative. Below are descriptions of each of the
projects with links to final documents developed by the
grantees.
City of Los
Angeles Planning Department
The City of Los Angeles developed a
Health and Wellness Chapter for its General Plan,
adopted by the City in 2015, which will help elevate
health as a priority for future planning and development
in Los Angeles. Known as
the Plan for a Healthy Los Angeles the Health and
Wellness Chapter lays out a practical vision for
creating a more vibrant, healthy, and sustainable city.
It serves as an overarching policy document for health -
a platform to help launch broad, citywide initiatives
that address health and equity.
In order to develop the Plan for a Healthy Los Angeles,
a
Health Atlas was developed as a tool to
comprehensively examine health issues in Los Angeles and
illustrates the role that neighborhoods play in the
health of Angelenos. The Health Atlas analyzes over 100
health outcomes, such as childhood obesity, pollution,
and crime, and how they are geographically concentrated
in the city. The Atlas shows that life expectancy in Los
Angeles' neighborhoods can vary by up to 12 years,
highlighting the opportunity to address health
inequities through better land use and community design.
Funded by the Los Angeles County Department of Public
Health and The California Endowment, this multi-sector
initiative provides the first update to the General Plan
Framework in over 20 years, and includes the development
of complementary programs to address issues identified
in the Health Atlas.
In addition to the Health Atlas, the City also created
an interactive website at
Plan
for a Healthy Los Angeles,, where the Atlas' data is
available through engaging maps and neighborhood
profiles. It offers neighborhood profiles and
interactive maps that display many of the
characteristics of the built and social environments
that affect health outcomes, such as economic
conditions, education, land use, transportation, and
crime statistics.
Safe Routes
to School National Partnership
The Safe Routes to School National Partnership (SRTSNP)
was funded to conduct research, provide educational
information, and create a space to discuss funding for
active transportation in Los Angeles County. During the
grant period the SRTSNP worked with the Los Angeles
County Bicycle Coalition to lead the Los Angeles County
Active Transportation Collaborative, which brought
together community members, community based organization
staff, jurisdictional staff, elected leaders, Metro
staff and board members to discuss active transportation
funding and support. The SRTNP developed a number of
resources to share information with community members
and leaders on active transportation funding./p>
The efforts of the SRTSNP and the Los
Angeles County Active Transportation Collaborative
helped result in additional funding for active transportation
from the Metro Express Lanes Toll Revenues Program and
Metro Call for Projects; a motion to develop an Active
Transportation Finance Strategy, which will be embedded
in the Metro Active Transportation Strategic Plan; a
countywide Complete Streets policy adopted by Metro; and
the addition of active transportation and public health
representatives to Metro's Technical Advisory Committee.
Advancement Project
The Advancement Project along with project partners
Watts Century Latino Organization (WCLO), the Los
Angeles Police Department and We Care Outreach, worked
together to develop a Safe Schools Vision Plan to serve
as a guide on how to create safe (from crime, violence,
and traffic) and inviting streets for walking,
bicycling, and playing around at around three middle and
high schools in the Watts neighborhood of the City of
Los Angeles.
City of
Baldwin Park
The City of Baldwin Park in partnership with the
California Center for Public Health Advocacy (CCPHA) and
the Baldwin Park Unified School District worked together
to develop and adopt a citywide Healthy Corner Store
Policy. The policy establishes guiding principles and
practices so that small and large food retailers
contribution to a healthier Baldwin Park through
strategies such as healthy food promotion, displays, and
store settings. The voluntary program allows for both
small and large food retailers to receive incentives and
recognition by adopting standards specified in the policy.
City of Lancaster
The City of Lancaster working with the Antelope Valley
Partners for Health (AVPH) and the Lancaster School
District to engage parents, students and other community
members in developing a citywide Safe Routes to School
plan, which includes infrastructure improvement
recommendations and programmatic opportunities for all
of Lancaster's schools. The plan builds on the City's
complete streets initiatives and the City's
Master Plan for Trails and Bikeways to improve
public health and expand opportunities for incorporating
physical activity into the daily lives of the City's
residents.
Day One
Day One worked with the cities of Baldwin Park, El
Monte, Monterey Park, San Gabriel, and South El Monte
and Alta Planning + Design to develop the five-city San
Gabriel Valley Regional Bicycle Master Plan. Adopted by
all five cities in 2014, the Plan outlines bikeways for
each city, links the cities to the greater San Gabriel
Valley region and beyond, and identifies programs and
policies that can improve the bike-ability of each
community.
Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition
The Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition
(LACBC) worked with TRUST South LA and the Los Angeles
Department of Transportation (LADOT) to engage the
community members in South Los Angeles in designing
bicycle friendly streets. Together they developed the
Active Streets LA Toolkit, which explains potential
options to community members seeking to calm traffic and
make their streets better for walking and bicycling. The
toolkit is available to be used by anyone working on
traffic calming initiatives in Los Angeles and beyond.
During the HEAL grant, LADOT sought and was awarded
grant funding to implement the community identified
traffic calming improvements on Budlong Avenue in South
Los Angeles
UCLA
Prevention Research Center
UCLA and the City of Carson developed an active
transportation plan for the City that combines the
City's existing Bicycle Master Plan with additional
considerations for pedestrians. The Plan, when finalized
and implemented, will connect residents with schools,
parks, commercial areas, and public transportation sites
via walking and bicycling infrastructure.
YWCA of Greater Los
Angeles:
The YWCA of Greater Los Angeles developed Community
Service Plans for the unincorporated communities of East
Los Angeles and Walnut Park. The Plans identify programs
and activities that the YWCA will implement over the
next 5 years to increase opportunities for physical
activity. Over the time of the initiative, the YWCA also
offered HEAL programming at two schools and two parks
during non-school hours.
CicLAvia Southeast
CicLAvia facilitated an interagency working group to
develop a Southeast CicLAvia Plan. The Plan provides the
basis for a large-scale open streets event that will
occur in May 2016. CicLAvia successfully worked with the
Cities of Los Angeles, South Gate, Lynwood, Huntington
Park, and the County of Los Angeles to file a successful
application with the Los Angeles County Metropolitan
Transportation Authority (Metro) to partially fund the
event.
Technical Assistance
PLACE provided technical assistance and funding to
develop (1) Citywide Safe Routes to School Plan for the
City of Cudahy and (2) Norwalk Park Master Plan for the
City of Norwalk. PLACE staff managed the consultant
teams to develop each plan, led community outreach and
engagement to inform the plan, and served as the primary
liaison between the City and Consultant.
