Did you know that NPLAN records and archives all of its webinars? Our archive currently features five webinars for you to view at your convenience: Healthy Planning 101, Preemption for Public Health, Community Gardens for Public Health, Complete the Streets!, and Fresh Produce for Underserved Communities. On our archive pages, you can also find PDF copies of the slideshows and other policy resources.

NPLAN’s work to help communities make themselves healthier was recognized today during the launch of “Let’s Move,” Michelle Obama’s new childhood obesity prevention initiative. The campaign promotes the availability of healthy, affordable food in schools and communities, and encourages more physical activity for American children.

A Mississippi mayor whose town has successfully opened up their school facilities to a youth basketball league named NPLAN as a resource for helping communities make healthy changes.

“There’s a group called NPLAN that’s funded through Robert Wood Johnson. They have some model policies for how you can share that liability, because people always worry about the liability,” said Mayor Chip Johnson of Hernando, MS. “There are ways to get past that so we can all share these facilities that are there.”

Watch a clip of Mayor Johnson below:

<

NPLAN’s wide range of materials focused on making schools healthier are a featured resource on LetsMove.gov, the website associated with the campaign.

LetsMove.gov also features “How to Make Healthy Changes in Your Neighborhood,” a PHLP fact sheet that provides a roadmap toward making healthier food more accessible.

Watch Michelle Obama talk about the new Partnership for a Healthier America, and why this initiative is so critical to the health of our nation:

Nutrition rating systems present opportunities for educating consumers about nutrition and promoting changes in dietary practices, but their varied formats and differing underlying criteria pose potential problems. Stumped at the Supermarket: Making Sense of Nutrition Rating Systems, a new paper from NPLAN and The Public Health Law Center, analyzes the future of nutrition rating systems through a variety of lenses.

Public Health Law & Policy is excited to unveil the first of four podcast stories that show how redevelopment can help make communities healthier. This series, available through HealthyPlanning.org or iTunes, brings to life how the redevelopment process helped advance public health, improving local air quality and making parks and healthy food more accessible.

February 23, 2010
10 AM PT / 11 AM MT / Noon CT / 1 PM ET
Register Today!

Eating healthier foods --- including more fresh fruits and vegetables --- helps to reduce the risk of obesity and chronic disease. Families and children from low-income communities and communities of color are less likely to have diets that meet nutrition guidelines. Studies show that residents of rural areas, low-income neighborhoods, and communities of color have less access to supermarkets and large grocery stores and the fresh produce they sell.

Community public health advocates and policymakers can use multiple approaches to fulfill this need for fresh produce in underserved communities. They can work with local agencies to attract full-service grocery stores. They can also support purveyors of fresh produce, often grown locally, by establishing favorable policies for farmers’ markets and mobile produce carts. The purpose of this webinar is to discuss the latter two types of policies, which bring fresh produce directly into underserved neighborhoods and create business opportunities for community members.

Through this webinar, participants will learn about ways to bring healthy foods to communities, outside of the traditional full-service grocery store. It will also provide mini-trainings on two of NPLAN’s model policy tools:  Model Produce Cart Ordinance (coming soon!) and Land Use Protections for Farmers’ Markets.

NPLAN’s Model Produce Cart Ordinance, inspired by New York City’s Green Cart program and other mobile vending ordinances around the country, is a cost-effective and efficient means of increasing residents’ access to fresh produce. It creates a streamlined permit program for the sale of fresh whole fruits and vegetables from sidewalk carts. NPLAN’s Model Land Use Protections for Farmers’ Markets provides policy language that creates more opportunities for farmers’ markets and ensures their long-term viability as a community institution.

In January 2010, NPLAN hosted a webinar on Complete Streets policies. Paul Zykofsky of the Local Government Commission discussed the benefits and principles of Complete Streets. Sara Zimmerman of NPLAN introduced the audience to NPLAN's Complete Streets model policy package (available soon!). And Ian Thomas of PedNet shared his experience leading a coalition of community members that successfully advocated for street design standards in Columbia, MO. The webinar recording and slides are now available for download.

The October issue of the American Journal of Public Health features A Legal Primer for the Obesity Prevention Movement, an article by NPLAN attorneys Samantha Graff and Ted Mermin. Public health advocates and scientists working on obesity prevention policy face challenges in balancing legal rights, individual freedom, and societal health goals. In particular, the US Constitution and the 50 state constitutions place limits on the ability of government to act, even in the best interests of the public. To help policymakers avoid crossing constitutional boundaries, this paper distills the legal concepts most relevant to formulating policies aimed at preventing obesity: police power; allocation of power among federal, state, and local governments; freedom of speech; property rights; privacy; equal protection; and contract rights.

In September, NPLAN hosted a webinar on preemption and public health. The webinar and presentation slides are now available for download. On this page, you will also find our preemption white paper, which explains why public health professionals should understand preemption. In the coming weeks, you will also find four new fact sheets the explain various aspects of preemption.

NPLAN is pleased to present a free webinar training on preemption and public health.

September 15, 10:00 AM – 11:15 AM PT
Featured Speakers:
Doug Blanke, JD & Julie Ralston Aoki, JD
William Mitchell College of Law, Public Health Law Center

Preemption affects every public health professional. The legal term “preemption” may have little resonance outside of courts and legislative chambers. But what it describes --- the invalidation of state law by federal law, or local law by state or federal law --- has profound significance for public health. 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. In other words, preemption affects just about everything a public health professional does.

The purpose of this webinar is to provide public health professionals and other non-lawyers with a basic grounding in preemption concepts through general discussion and examples. It will help public health professionals participate fully in policy discussions when preemption is on the table. The webinar will be recorded and archived for those who miss it.

Click here to register!

Download NPLAN's preemption resource.

About the Hosts

The Public Health Law Center uses the power of law to advance public health.  Grounded in research and scholarship, but focused on real-world results, the Center helps advocates and health officials develop, implement and defend effective policies to control tobacco, prevent obesity, encourage healthy eating and promote worker health. The Center is located at Minnesota’s largest law school, the William Mitchell College of Law, which has been committed for over a century to instilling “practical wisdom” — law with its sleeves rolled up in service of the community. 

NPLAN provides legal technical assistance to communities across the country that want to put obesity prevention policies in place. We develop practical policy tools for both non-lawyers and lawyers. Our target audiences include staff members at local and state health departments, staff members at local planning departments, staff members at community-based organizations, local elected officials and their staffers, city attorneys and county counsel. We work primarily on local policy development. NPLAN is funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation as part of its childhood obesity prevention initiative.

 

The August 2009 Issue of Parks & Recreation features NPLAN's joint use agreement resources in an article about using school recreational facilities as community facilities. The article, which is attached to this news item, provides examples of cities that have used joint use agreements to expand recreational opportunities for citizens. Parks & Recreation is a publication of the National Parks & Recreation Association.