Healthy People Healthy Places Grants are a part of The Health Trust’s Healthy Living Initiative. This Initiative aims to improve and enhance physical activity and healthy food opportunities for all residents to help ensure their lifelong good health. The rising rate of obesity in our region is a growing health problem. Yet we can design better health into our daily lives by creating an environment where physical activity and nutritious food is more readily accessible, making the right thing to do also the easy thing to do. Healthy People Healthy Places Grants allow us to take an integrated approach to ‘Healthy Living’ by utilizing a neighborhood or place-based strategy. The Health Trust has received matched funding from the Convergance Partnership Fund of Tides Foundation to support these grants.¹

Overview

Healthy People Healthy Places is a multi-field policy and environmental change effort that:

• Emphasizes equity and community partnerships in neighborhoods most impacted by poverty, obesity and poor access to healthy food and physical activity opportunities
• Implements one or more land use/built environment planning and design and/or access to healthy foods strategies
• Impacts one or more “places” where people live, study, work, or play

Goals:

• Engages and mobilizes neighborhoods/communities in policy and environmental change efforts to increase physical activity and healthy eating opportunities within a health equity framework
• Implements policy and environmental change strategies that hold long-term promise to create healthy places

Long-Term Outcomes:

• Healthy eating is a part of every day life
• Physical activity is a part of every day life
• Overweight and obesity prevalence reduced

HPHP Projects Funded:

• $100,000 over 15 months for the Pathways to Active and Healthy Living Project to promote safe, active living and commuting in the Five Wounds Brookwood Terrace neighborhood in San Jose.
• $100,000 over 15 months for the Dunne Park Restoration Project to increase the utilization of Dunne Park for physical activity and increase availability of healthy foods at the oldest park in the City of Hollister. 
• $160,000 over 15 months for the Healthy Schools Project to improve student nutrition in the Alum Rock School District, promote parent and resident advocacy for healthy food in schools, and increase parent and resident access to locally produced food in the Mayfair neighborhood in East San Jose.
• $25,000 over six months for the Creating Healthy Youth in San Benito County Project to engage multi-sector stakeholders to develop a strategic plan to make policy and environmental changes to improve the health of youth in San Benito County.

¹ The Healthy Eating, Active Living Convergence Partnership is a consortium of funders who have come together with the shared goal of changing policies and environments to better achieve the vision of healthy people living in healthy places.  The steering committee includes representatives from The California Endowment, Kaiser Permanente, Kresge Foundation, Nemours, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and the W.K. Kellogg Foundation.  The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention serve as technical advisors on the committee.  For more information visit www.convergencepartnership.org.