Physical Activity Guidelines Information
Be Active Your Way e-cards offer tips and tools to help you and your loved ones find different ways to get active! Visit the Web site, choose a card, add a personal message, and send it to friends or family.  http://www.healthfinder.gov/ecards/cards.aspx.
Additional e-cards will be available in the future, so check the Web site for updates!

Healthy People 2020
The Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion invites public comment on the existing Healthy People 2010 objectives.  These comments will be used to inform the development of the draft Healthy People 2020 objectives.  Comments for this period must be received by April 24, 2009.  Please visit http://www.healthypeople.gov/hp2020/comments/. 

Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ)
AHRQ created a diabetes cost estimation tool.  Employers can use the tool to estimate how much diabetes costs them and the potential savings from better management of the disease.  To learn more or to access the tool, please visit: http://www.ahrq.gov/populations/diabcostcalc/.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
Children's BMI Tool for Schools
The tool is an Excel spreadsheet that can be used by schools, child care and other professionals to calculate BMI for groups of children.  To access the tool, please visit: http://www.cdc.gov/healthyweight/assessing/
bmi/childrens_bmi/tool_for_schools.html

Weight of the Nation Conference
Register for the CDC’s inaugural conference on obesity prevention and control taking place July 27-29, 2009 in Washington, DC.  The conference is designed to provide a forum to highlight progress in the prevention and control of obesity through policy and environmental strategies and is framed around four intervention settings: community, medical care, school, and workplace.
http://guest.cvent.com/EVENTS/Info/
Summary.aspx?e=815f3980-e9c7-4a48-8569-a6daf4e39e8b

Morbidity Mortality Weekly Report
Arthritis as a Potential Barrier to Physical Activity Among Adults With Heart Disease --- United States, 2005 and 2007. 

“Being physically active is an important component of heart disease (HD) management (1); however patients with HD are less likely to comply with physical activity recommendations than those without HD (2). Arthritis is a common comorbidity among persons with HD, and arthritis-associated joint pain and fear of further joint damage can be an unrecognized barrier to physical activity among persons with HD (CDC, unpublished data, 2008).”
To view the entire article, please visit: http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/
mmwrhtml/mm5807a2.htm?s_cid=mm5807a2_e

ACHIEVE
43 U.S. communities have been selected to serve as ACHIEVE communitities: Action Communities for Health, Innovation, and EnVironmental changE.  Their goal is to bring together local leaders and stakeholders in an effort to build healthier communities by promoting policy, systems, and environmental change strategies that focus on physical activity, nutrition, tobacco cessation, obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease.
To learn more about these communities, please visit www.achievecommunities.org.

National Institutes of Health (NIH)
The Acting Surgeon General is featured on the first in a series of NIH Podcasts about the new Physical Activity Guidelines.  Access the Podcasts at: http://www.nih.gov/news/radio/nihpodcast.htm

The National Institute on Aging updated the popular NIA exercise guide for older adults.  The 2009 version, Exercise and Physical Activity: Your Everyday Guide from the National Institute on Aging is available for free online and in print.  To download or order the guide, please visit: www.nia.nih.gov/exercise.

And elsewhere…

Healthy Eating and Active Living Convergence Partnership
The Partnership has available a free Web-based toolkit that provides an overview of transportation policy and planning and the connections with public health.  The focus of the information tends toward federal policies.  To navigate the toolkit, please visit:
http://www.convergencepartnership.org/th101/

Active Living Research
A new research brief, Growing Demand for Communities that Promote Health, overviews the state of the peer-reviewed research relating to walkable communities and their affect on physical activity.  To access the PDF, visit http://www.activelivingresearch.org/files/
ALR_Brief_WalkableCommunities.pdf

American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) and National Society for Physical Activity Practitioners in Public Health (NSPAPPH)
Together the ACSM and NSPAPPH launched a specialty certification, Physical Activity in Public Health Specialist.  This is a national voluntary professional certification for physical activity practitioners who focus on public health settings.  To learn more, please visit:
http://www.nspapph.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=73&Itemid=1.