Active Environments

Interest in environmental and policy strategies to promote physical activity has grown over the last few years and there is now a growing body of evidence supporting such approaches. Environmental and policy approaches may be especially important as they can benefit all people exposed to the environment rather than focusing on changing physical activity behavior one person at a time. Strategies often include providing access to facilities and programs not currently available and supporting social environments that favor activities. Examples include walking and bicycle trails, funding for public facilities, zoning and land use that facilitates activity in neighborhoods, mall walking programs, and building construction that encourages physical activity. Such approaches hold particular promise for promoting physical activity and should be taken into account in the design of physical activity interventions. The links below provide public health, community design and related sites that complement Active Community Environments (ACES) efforts.

Active Community Environments Initiative
Encourages environmental and policy interventions that will affect increased levels of physical activity and improved public health by promoting walking, bicycling, and the development of accessible recreation facilities.

CDC's Healthy Communities Program
CDC and its partners are working together to create healthy, thriving communities across the United States by reducing chronic diseases and attaining health equity through training, mentorship, dissemination of effective models, and investments in communities that jump-start local change.

Designing & Building Healthy Places
Promotes healthy community design. The interaction between people and their environments, natural as well as human-made, continues to emerge as a major issue concerning public health.

Environmental Change Strategies to Promote Physical Activity Quick Start [PDF-74k]
This resource provides key references, tools, and components for the planning, implementation, evaluation, and maintenance of environmental interventions to promote physical activity.

PEP: A Personal Energy Plan
The Personal Energy Plan or PEP is a 12-week self-directed, worksite program to promote healthy eating and moderate physical activity. The program materials include workbooks for healthy eating and physical activity targeting employees based on their readiness to change. A coordinator's kit, promotional brochures, and posters are also included in the program.

Promoting Physical Activity: A Guide for Community Action
A step-by-step guide to communitywide behavior change.

StairWELL to Better Health
CDC study assesses whether making stairwells visually appealing with art and signs motivate employees to use them, shows promising results.

Worksite Walkability Audit Tool
A walkability audit tool is designed to broadly assess pedestrian facilities, destinations, and surroundings along and near a walking route and identify specific improvements that would make the route more attractive and useful to pedestrians. Using CDC's Walkability Audit from this site can help you assess the safety or attractiveness of the walking routes at your worksite.

Related  Resources

2008 Physical Activity Guidelines Toolkit for Organizations and Communities A comprehensive approach to helping all Americans achieve the health benefits of regular physical activity involves action at all levels of society: individual, interpersonal, organizational, community, and public policy.

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation offers resources that can assist your community or project promote and change environments to support physical activity.

• Active Living by Design
  Active Living by Design is a national program of The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and is a part of the UNC School of Public Health in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. This program establishes and evaluates innovative approaches to increase physical activity through community design, public policies and communications strategies.
• Active Living Leadership
  Active Living Leadership is a National Initiative supported by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF), developed to support government leaders as they create and promote policies, programs and places that enable active living to improve the health, well-being and vitality of communities.
• Active Living Resources
  This resource section provides an in depth review of important publications, presentations, tools and other information that support Active Living by Design.

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