Resource Center
Community Engagement
Building Local Community-Based Public Health Systems: Lessons Learned and Policy Recommendations [PDF–577KB]
Discusses lessons learned and provides policy recommendations that will help practitioners, policy makers, academics, government agencies, and local organizations build a foundation for community-based health improvement in California.
CDC's Principles of Community Engagement [PDF–2.6MB]
Provides public health professionals, health care providers, and community-based leaders with both a science base and practical guidance for engaging partners in projects that may affect them.
Coalition Guide #1: Before You Build Your Coalition [PDF–81KB]
Outlines needs for forming a coalition, including the definition of a coalition, why coalitions form, characteristics of an effective coalition, the costs and benefits of forming a coalition, stages of development, and the necessary steps for building an effective coalition.
Coalition Guide #2: Coalition Formation Stage [PDF–54KB]
Outlines what a practitioner should expect while forming a coalition, including the potential structure of the coalition, the tasks, and the products or outcomes.
Coalition Guide #3: Implementation Stage [PDF–53KB]
Outlines what to expect during the coalition implementation stage including a summary of the structure, tasks, and outcomes of this stage.
Coalition Guide #4: Coalition Maintenance Stage [PDF–52KB]
Outlines how to maintain a coalition once it has been implemented, including potential tasks for keeping stakeholders engaged in the coalition and the expected outcomes during the maintenance stage.
Coalition Guide #5: Coalition Institutionalization Stage [PDF–52KB]
Outlines strategies a coalition can use after it has achieved its initial goals and built capacity in the community to make policy, systems, and environmental changes.
Coalitions: State and Community Interventions [PDF–1.94MB]
Focuses on the critical role coalitions play in a comprehensive tobacco control program.
Developing Effective Coalitions: An Eight-Step Guide
Outlines step-by-step guidelines to help partnerships launch and stabilize successfully, determine the appropriateness of a coalition, select members, define key elements, maintain vitality, and conduct ongoing evaluations.
Engaging Communities in Changing Nutrition and Physical Activity Environments [PDF–2.39MB]
Discusses how Healthy Eating, Active Living and Central California Regional Obesity Prevention Program are engaging communities and presents promising practices for community engagement and sustainability demonstrated by grantees.
Model Licensing Ordinance for Healthy Food Retailers
Model Licensing Ordinance for Healthy Food Retailers helps ensure greater access to healthy foods in communities that need it most.
Public Health Terms for Planners and Planning Terms for Public Health Professionals [PDF–140KB]
It is provided to planners, public health professionals and all others interested in interdisciplinary collaboration between the two fields. A great resource to overcome the potential language barriers between the two professions.
Youth Engagement—State and Community Interventions [PDF–2.36MB]
Focuses on the role youth advocates can play in advancing policy as part of a comprehensive tobacco control program.
Leveraging Support or Funding
Building Local Community-Based Public Health Systems: Lessons Learned and Policy Recommendations [PDF–577KB]
Presents the lessons learned from the Partnership for the Public's Health initiative at its midpoint, describes a wide range of strategies that communities and public health departments are currently using to overcome local challenges, and outlines the policy implications of the work.
Engaging Communities in Changing Nutrition and Physical Activity Environments [PDF–2.39MB]
Discusses how Healthy Eating, Active Living and Central California Regional Obesity Prevention Program are engaging communities and presents promising practices for community engagement and sustainability demonstrated by grantees.
How to Partner with Government to Enforce Laws in Your Community [PDF–802KB]
Lays out the facts to help advocates and other community leaders report local ordinance violations through partnering with government to enforce laws.
Key Lessons from California Schools Working to Change School Food Environments [PDF–1.38MB]
Outlines challenges, opportunities, and key considerations for working with and within schools to improve nutrition and physical activity environments for children.
Making Health Communication Programs Work
Presents updates in communication planning guidelines to account for the advances in knowledge and technology that have occurred during the past decade.
Making the Case for Community Prevention through Media Advocacy [PDF–396KB]
Resource describes how practitioners can work with media effectively to promote systems and environmental changes that will improve public health.
Making the Case for Prevention: Basic Messages for Health Departments [PDF–2.14MB]
Guides health departments on how to explain to the public their goals and rationale for prevention and helps them tailor messages for the media, policy makers, and community leaders.
Making the Case to Stakeholders: Linking Policy and Environmental Strategies to Health Outcomes [PDF–1.14MB]
Resource provides scientific evidence to help make the case for strategies to reduce chronic disease and build healthier communities.
Media Access Guide: A Resource for Community Health Promotion [PDF–1.55MB]
Provides tools to help practitioners get started in social media by determining which channels will best meet communication objectives, and help to create a social media strategy for promoting health.
Promoting Healthy Youth, Schools, and Communities: A Guide to Community School Health Councils [PDF–2.57MB]
Toolkit describes the steps for creating a community-based coalition to work with a school district in order to strengthen children's health
Strategies for Building Community-Public Health Partnerships: Lessons Learned [PDF–719KB]
Presents a collaborative approach, called “community-based public health,” focusing on population health, strengthening public health infrastructure, and creating partnerships and accountability systems.
Successful Partnerships: Strategies for Multi-Field and Cross-Sector Collaborations
Webinar that explores the importance of engaging partners that extend beyond health and includes initiatives that involve collaboration across a broad spectrum of fields, including health, urban planning, transportation, food and sustainable agriculture, and community and economic development.
Talking About Healthy People in Healthy Places: Linking Values to Policy and Environmental Change
Webinar that addresses effective communication strategies of healthy people in healthy places including framing, language, developing messages that can garner support for policies and environmental change strategies as well as address the challenges of talking about equity.
The Health Communicator's Social Media Toolkit [PDF–2.42MB]
Guides a health practitioner to get started in social media by providing information for developing governance for social media, determining which channels will best meet communication objectives, and helping create a social media strategy.
Health Equity
A New Way to Talk About Social Determinants of Health
Provides a new frame for talking about the social determinants of health for practitioners and policy makers and discusses the social determinants of health in a meaningful way that the public can understand.
A Path From Hope to Change: Implementing Equity-Focused Principles and Strategies
Describes how equity-based strategies and principles can form the basis of environmental policy change.
A Time of Opportunity: Local Solutions to Reduce Inequities in Health and Safety
Examines the emerging paradigm of public health and summarizes a set of recommendations that bridge traditional disease management with more upstream preventative work that can be accomplished locally.
Active Living and Social Equity: Creating Healthy Communities for All Residents: A Guide for Local Governments [PDF–403KB]
Provides local government managers, department heads, and staff with a basic understanding of the connections between active living and social equity and offers a toolbox of local government strategies for addressing these issues.
Health Equity and Prevention Primer Module 1: Achieving Equity in Health and Safety Through Primary Prevention
Describes how a primary prevention approach leads to the goal of equity in health and safety through defining primary prevention, disparities, and inequities, and identifies examples of primary prevention strategies.
Health Equity and Prevention Primer Module 2: Take Two Steps to Prevention
Introduces the Two Steps to Prevention framework and the Trajectory of Health Inequities by showing how inequities are created and where prevention efforts are most effective.
Health Equity and Prevention Primer Module 3: Community Factors and How They Influence Health Equity
Explores 18 community factors and demonstrates their links to health equity by providing ways to address inequities in the community environment.
Health Equity and Prevention Primer Module 4: The Spectrum of Prevention: A Framework for Addressing Health Equity
Introduces the Spectrum of Prevention and provides a step-by-step explanation of how the Spectrum can be used to develop a mutually supportive set of actions as part of a comprehensive primary prevention strategy that changes societal norms, systems, and environments for equity.
Health Equity and Prevention Primer Module 5: Enhancing Effective Partnerships for Health Equity
Explores the power of partnerships for improving equity by introducing the Eight Steps to Coalition Building, which can be used to develop a successful collaborative health equity effort.
Health Equity and Prevention Primer Module 6: The Importance of Local Policy for Achieving Equitable Outcomes
Provides an overview of four key strategies in the policy development process.
Health Equity and Prevention Primer Module 7: Good Health Counts: Measurement and Evaluation for Health Equity
Builds upon previous modules in the Health Equity and Prevention Primer series to describe how community health indicators can be used in community assessments to improve health and safety outcomes and reduce inequities.
Health for All: California’s Strategic Approach to Eliminating Racial and Ethnic Disparities
Explains the three-fold approach taken by the California Campaign to Eliminate Racial and Ethnic Disparities to better understand the roots and pathways to health disparities, determine what can be done, and reduce and eliminate health disparities.
In Brief: Preserving Affordability and Access in Livable Communities: Subsidized Housing Opportunities near Transit and the 50+ Population [PDF–84.3KB]
The report explores the benefits for older persons of federally subsidized housing near transit, the threats to preserving and expanding that housing, and policies that can maximize both the amount of housing and the potential benefits.
Promoting Health Equity: A Resource to Help Communities Address Social Determinants of Health [PDF–4.63MB]
Encourages and supports developing new and expanding initiatives and partnerships to address the social determinants of health inequities.
Rural Active Living Assessment (RALA) Tools
The RALA Tools assess the physical environment features and amenities, town characteristics, community programs, and policies that can affect physical activity among residents in rural communities.
THRIVE: The Tool for Health and Resilience in Vulnerable Environments
Interactive, online tool helps practitioners conduct evaluations to understand and prioritize factors that will improve community health and safety.
The Grocery Gap: Who Has Access to Healthy Food and Why It Matters
Presents findings and policy implications from 132 studies on food access and identifies lack of access to fresh, healthy food in low-income communities, communities of color, and rural areas.
The Road to Health Care Parity: Transportation Policy and Access to Health Care [PDF–322KB]
Summarizes how transportation policy can make a positive impact on health conditions by increasing options for commuters, reducing air pollution, and creating better connections to health services.
Unnatural Causes Action Toolkit [PDF–2.2MB]
Provides facilitation tips, background, sample agendas, and guidelines for planning an effective screening, that helps understand issues and serves as a step towards further involvement.
Why Place & Race Matter [PDF–3.47MB]
Examines how strengthening environmental factors can benefit the health of all communities and looks at the growing movement to develop place-based solutions to place-based problems.
Coalition Management or Internal Communication
Best Practices for Comprehensive Tobacco Control Programs User Guide: Coalitions [PDF–2.42MB]
Focuses on the critical role coalitions play in a comprehensive tobacco control program and provides tobacco control program managers with information on the best practices of using coalitions as a part of a comprehensive program that can lead to important policy changes.
Best Practices for Comprehensive Tobacco Control Programs User Guide: Youth Engagement [PDF–2.36MB]
Focuses on the role youth play in advancing policy as part of a comprehensive tobacco control program and provides tobacco control program managers with information on the best practices for engaging youth as a part of a comprehensive program.
Building Local Community-Based Public Health Systems: Lessons Learned and Policy Recommendations [PDF–577KB]
Discusses lessons learned and provides policy recommendations that will help practitioners, policy makers, academics, government agencies, and local organizations build a foundation for community-based health improvement in California.
California Convergence: Promise and Progress in Building a Movement [PDF–61KB]
Summarizes how participants in the California Convergence recognized the value of working together and met the challenges of collaboration with readiness, energy, enthusiasm, and optimism.
Coalition Guide #3: Implementation Stage [PDF–53KB]
Outlines what to expect during the coalition implementation stage including a summary of the structure, tasks, and outcomes of this stage.
Coalition Guide #4: Coalition Maintenance Stage [PDF–52KB]
Outlines how to maintain a coalition once it has been implemented, including potential tasks for keeping stakeholders engaged in the coalition and the expected outcomes during the maintenance stage.
Coalition Guide #5: Coalition Institutionalization Stage [PDF–52KB]
Outlines strategies a coalition can use after it has achieved its initial goals and built capacity in the community to make policy, systems, and environmental changes.
Developing Effective Coalitions: An Eight-Step Guide
Outlines step-by-step guidelines to help partnerships launch and stabilize successfully, determine the appropriateness of a coalition, select members, define key elements, maintain vitality, and conduct ongoing evaluations.
Engaging Communities in Changing Nutrition and Physical Activity Environments [PDF–2.39MB]
Discusses how Healthy Eating, Active Living and Central California Regional Obesity Prevention Program are engaging communities and presents promising practices for community engagement and sustainability demonstrated by grantees.
Key Lessons from California Schools Working to Change School Food Environments [PDF–1.38MB]
Outlines challenges, opportunities, and key considerations for working with and within schools to improve nutrition and physical activity environments for children.
Making Health Communication Programs Work
Presents updates in communication planning guidelines to account for the advances in knowledge and technology that have occurred during the past decade.
Strategies for Building Community-Public Health Partnerships: Lessons Learned [PDF–719KB]
Presents a collaborative approach, called “community-based public health,” focusing on population health, strengthening public health infrastructure, and creating partnerships and accountability systems.
Successful Partnerships: Strategies for Multi-Field and Cross-Sector Collaborations
Webinar that explores the importance of engaging partners that extend beyond health and includes initiatives that involve collaboration across a broad spectrum of fields, including health, urban planning, transportation, food and sustainable agriculture, and community and economic development.
The Tension of Turf: Making it Work for the Coalition
Offers practical support for skillfully managing the dynamic tension that commonly arises when people collaborate and helps coalitions derive authentic, constructive power from their varying perspectives, skills, and mandates.
Legal Skills and Knowledge
Advocacy and Lobbying for Nonprofit Organizations [PDF–156KB]
Fact sheet explains the difference between advocacy and lobbying.
Connecting with State AG Offices [PDF–236KB]
Fact sheet explains how to approach a state attorney general as a potential partner to draw attention to obesity and potential problematic food marketing practices.
Economic Development and Redevelopment: A Toolkit for Building Healthy, Vibrant Communities [PDF–3.19MB]
Provides an advanced level of resources for nutritionists and other public health advocates who want to improve food access in low-income neighborhoods, including economic development and redevelopment tools and ways to effectively participate in decisions about their use.
General Plans and Zoning: A Toolkit for Building Healthy, Vibrant Communities [PDF–2.96MB]
Provides nutritionists and other public health advocates with a fundamental, introductory understanding of how land use decisions are made and how advocates can effectively participate in those decisions.
Legal Considerations in Implementing a Tobacco Cessation Program in the Workplace [PDF–269KB]
Highlights frequently asked questions that employers often have about setting up a tobacco cessation program in the workplace.
Legal Options for Tenants Suffering from Drifting Tobacco Smoke [PDF–288KB]
Outlines the necessary legal steps that could be used if a lawsuit seems to be the only option for combating drifting tobacco smoke.
Let's Walk to School: Reducing Liability Concerns and Getting Kids Active Through Safe Routes to School
Webinar that highlights the Safe Routes to School programs and policies that make it easier and safer for children and their families to walk or bike to school by sponsoring walk-to-school days and organizing “walking school buses.”
Municipal Authority to Regulate the Location and Operation of Tobacco Retailers [PDF–362KB]
Addresses how public health can be improved when local governments exercise their constitutional, statutory, and charter authority to regulate the uses of land within their jurisdictions to control tobacco retailing.
Preemption: What It Is, How It Works, and Why It Matters for Public Health [PDF–245KB]
Defines preemption and explains how it affects everything from the quality of medical devices to the extent of tobacco advertising, from the presence of air bags in cars to the disclosure of ingredients in pesticides.
Regulating Flavored Tobacco Products [PDF–405KB]
Serves as a starting point for organizations interested in implementing certain tobacco control measures.
Regulating Tobacco Marketing: A "Commercial Speech" Fact Sheet for State and Local Government [PDF–178KB]
Explores the federal legal implications in depth, offering more detail about how courts treat different kinds of restrictions and what that means for governments interested in restricting tobacco marketing and promotion.
Secondhand Smoke Seepage into Multiunit Affordable Housing [PDF–1.65MB]
Documents the urgent need for smoke-free housing for those who have lower incomes, the health and financial benefits of providing smoke-free housing, and describes the legal ability to prohibit smoking in public housing and HUD-assisted residential units.
Serving School Garden Produce in the Cafeteria [PDF–251KB]
Discusses federal law and policies, the model version of the Food Code used by most states, and local policies that may affect programs that serve school garden produce in the cafeteria.
The New FDA Law: A Green Light for Tobacco Control? [PDF–266KB]
Lists the policy ideas that are affected by the 2009 FDA law and provides a chart to explain whether the suggested policies are legally safe to pursue and why.
What Tobacco Products are Covered by the 2009 FDA Law? [PDF–338KB]
Explains that most portions of the 2009 FDA Law apply to only a few types of tobacco products and lists their restrictions.
Sustainability
A Sustainability Planning Guide for Healthy Communities [PDF–1.17MB]
Synthesizes science‐ and practice‐based evidence designed to help coalitions, public health professionals, and other community stakeholders develop, implement, and evaluate a successful sustainability plan.
Active Living and Social Equity: Creating Healthy Communities for All Residents: A Guide for Local Governments [PDF–403KB]
Provides local government managers, department heads, and staff with a basic understanding of the connections between active living and social equity and offers a toolbox of local government strategies for addressing these issues.
Building Local Community-Based Public Health Systems: Lessons Learned and Policy Recommendations [PDF–577KB]
Presents the lessons learned from the Partnership for the Public's Health (PPH) initiative at its midpoint, describes a wide range of strategies that communities and public health departments are currently using to overcome local challenges, and most importantly outlines the policy implications of the work.
California Convergence: Promise and Progress in Building a Movement [PDF–61KB]
Summarizes how participants in the California Convergence recognized the value of working together and met the challenges of collaboration with readiness, energy, enthusiasm, and optimism.
Community Information Toolkit: Building Stronger Communities Through Information Exchange
Helps community leaders harness the power of information to advance their goals for a better community.
Framework for Program Evaluation in Public Health
Describes a framework for program evaluation to ensure that the members of CDC and other public health officials remain accountable and committed to achieving measurable health outcomes and summarizes and organizes the steps and standards for effective program evaluation.
Healthy Decatur: A Holistic Approach to Sustainability [PDF–736KB]
Outlines the strategies and long-term programs undertaken by residents and local government officials in Decatur, Georgia, to encourage active lifestyles.
Key Lessons from California Schools Working to Change School Food Environments [PDF–1.38MB]
Shares the collective learning from The California Endowment’s experience supporting work to improve school food, especially early lessons from The Endowment’s Healthy Eating, Active Communities (HEAC) program, as well as provides other communities and school districts with the opportunity to learn from the experience.
Local Health Department Organizational Self-Assessment for Addressing Health Inequities [PDF–844KB]
Provides a self-assessment designed to encourage dialogue among senior managers and staff in local health departments to re-examine their collective understanding of and ability to address the underlying causes of health inequities.
Making Health Communication Programs Work
Presents updates in communication planning guidelines to account for the advances in knowledge and technology that have occurred during the past decade.
Making Healthy Choices Possible: Practice-Oriented Lessons on Community Strategies for Environmental Change [PDF–2.16MB]
Diagrams the structure of the Healthy Eating, Active Living demonstration sites and the technical support provided and presents success and lessons emerging at the midpoint of the program.
Roadmap to Improving Food and Physical Activity Environments: Tips and Tools for Community Change. Second Edition [PDF–2.66MB]
Helps coalitions find some of the many tools and materials that are becoming available to support active, healthy living without becoming overwhelmed by the very process of choosing tools.
Strategies for Building Community-Public Health Partnerships: Lessons Learned [PDF–719KB]
Presents a collaborative approach, called “community-based public health,” focusing on population health, strengthening public health infrastructure, and creating partnerships and accountability systems.
The Legacy of Partnership: Enduring Practices and Sustainable Models from the Partnership for the Public's Health Initiative [PDF–2.1MB]
Describes a program evaluation where health departments and communities are able to work successfully together over time and offer strategies for sustainability in similar programs.
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.
Reminder: CDC awardees are prohibited from using appropriated Federal funds for lobbying activities. Learn more about CDC's official guidance on lobbying restrictions.
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