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ACES — Active Community Environments

CDC's Active Community Environments Initiative (ACES) promotes walking, bicycling, and the development of accessible recreation facilities. It was developed in response to data from a variety of disciplines, including public health, urban design, and transportation planning. These data suggest characteristics of our communities such as proximity of facilities, street design, density of housing, availability of public transit and of pedestrian and bicycle facilities play a significant role in promoting or discouraging physical activity.

This initiative encourages environmental and policy interventions that will affect increased levels of physical activity and improved public health. The goals are to

Current activities to promote the goals of the Active Community Environments Initiative include


Active Community Environment Working Papers

The Active Community Environment workgroup is collaborating on a number of working papers and data analyses designed to better understand how the natural, built, and social environment influences physical activity. As research provides new data the current working papers will be updated or new articles posted.

How Land Use and Transportation Systems Impact Public HealthPDF file (PDF-845K)
This paper is a synthesis of the literature on the relationship between physical activity and community design.
(updated 12/26/2000)

How Land Use and Transportation Systems Impact Public Health: An Annotated bibliographyPDF file (PDF-635K)
(updated 12/26/2000)

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* Links to non-Federal organizations found at this site are provided solely as a service to our users. These links do not constitute an endorsement of these organizations or their programs by CDC or the Federal Government, and none should be inferred. CDC is not responsible for the content of the individual organization Web pages found at these links.

Page last reviewed: July 22, 2008
Page last updated: July 22, 2008
Content Source: Division of Nutrition, Physical Activity and Obesity, National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion