Beginning in 2011 the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) gave nearly $200 million dollars in Community Transformation Grants (CTG) to help communities design and implement programs to prevent chronic disease. California had the great fortune to be awarded multiple grants, with fourteen recipients receiving a total of $35,260,215. This funding provided an opportunity for California to take significant strides in addressing chronic diseases through efforts aimed at creating healthier communities. Despite the termination of the CTG program in the 2014 federal budget, there is much to learn and celebrate in the accomplishments and successes of California’s grantees.
This Web Forum will share some of the successes and lessons learned from four CTG sites’ healthy eating and active living activities. Healthy eating interventions are nutrition-focused strategies addressing nutrition policies, standards, and guidelines as well as interventions promoting access to healthy foods and beverages. Active living interventions target increasing the availability of physical activity opportunities for community members. Join in to hear Program Leads discuss what makes a successful program work and how to build upon this momentum. New CDC grantees will gain valuable insight and interested stakeholders will have an opportunity to understand the impact of prevention funding in California examples.
Any program striving towards encouraging healthy eating and active living through policy, system, and environmental change efforts will have knowledge to glean from the experience, successes and challenges of projects from California’s CTG sites.
Presenters
Jessica Estrada
Program Coordinator, Tenderloin Healthy Corner Store Coalition
San Francisco Department of Public Health
San Francisco, CA
- Community Engagement Coordinator, HealthyRetailSF Program, San Francisco Department of Public Health, San Francisco, CA
Jessica Estrada is the Program Coordinator of the Tenderloin Healthy Corner Store Coalition and Community Engagement Coordinator (CEC) of the HealthyRetailSF Program in San Francisco. Jessica graduated from the University of California, Davis in 2007, with a B.S. degree in Psychology and Exercise Biology. After graduation, she worked for the Yolo County…
Susana Hennessey Lavery, MPH
Health Educator, Community Health Equity and Promotion Branch, Population Health Division
San Francisco Department of Public Health
San Francisco, CA
Susana Hennessey Lavery, MPH, is a Health Educator with the San Francisco Department of Public Health (1992 - present). In that capacity she designs and implements comprehensive health promotion plans, co-designed and implements the CAM (community action model for policy development) and works on local and global health projects with San Francisco’s…
Flor L. del Hoyo, MPH
Senior Health Educator
Kern County Public Health Services Department
Bakersfield, CA
Flor del Hoyo is a Senior Health Educator from Kern County Public Health Services Department, with a Masters in Public Health from the University of Southern California. She is the project coordinator for the Call to Action for a Healthy Kern Coalition and previously supported the Community Work Group for Call to Action…
Alexis Lantz, MA Urban Planning
Project Coordinator, Choose Health LA
Los Angeles County Department of Public Health
Los Angeles, CA
Alexis Lantz is the Project Coordinator for Choose Health LA at the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health. Previously, she was a policy analyst with the DPH PLACE Program and the Planning & Policy Director at the Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition (LACBC). During her tenure at LACBC she…
Christine Montes, MPH
Policy Analyst, Choose Health LA, Division of Chronic Disease and Injury Prevention
Los Angeles County Department of Public Health
Los Angeles, CA
Christine Montes is a Policy Analyst with the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health. Her work focuses on policy, systems, and environmental change strategies to improve access to healthier foods. She leads the implementation of two countywide initiatives focused on the retail food environment, and assists on several other…
Shelley Saitowitz, MPH
Community Health Program Specialist, Chronic Disease and Health Equity Unit
County of San Diego, Health and Human Services Agency
San Diego, CA
Shelley Saitowitz, M.P.H., is a Community Health Program Specialist (since 2007) with the County of San Diego, Health & Human Services Agency (HHSA)—Chronic Disease and Health Equity Unit. At the County, she supports work on a wide range of topics including chronic disease and health equity, food systems, climate change,…
Moderator
Genoveva Islas, MPH
California CTG Project Coordinator
Public Health Institute
Oakland, CA
Genoveva Islas was born in Fresno, California and grew up in small rural communities of the San Joaquin Valley; her parents were farm laborers. She is the first in her family to attend college and graduate with an advanced degree. She earned a Bachelors of Science in Health Science with…