Lessons from RWJF Culture of Health Prize Communities on Improving Healthy Food Environments

Obesity is a significant challenge to the nation’s health and economy – costing $209 billion in 2008. Communities across the country are taking action to reverse the obesity trend by changing their local environments to support healthy eating.

A recent article published in this month’s Health Affairs, examined the food-related strategies of the 2013 and 2014 RWJF Culture of Health Prize communities. Prize winners place a high priority on heath and bring diverse partners together to achieve local change. While the Prize criteria don’t require communities to specifically describe their local food environments, all twelve winners chose to include strategies that focused on improving access to and consumption of healthy food.

Study authors identified 37 food-related strategies used by Prize winners and compared these strategies to the summaries and evidence ratings in the What Works for Health database. The database includes evidence reviews and ratings of more than 340 strategies that address the health factors in the County Health Rankings model – 42 of which address diet.

If your community is looking to expand options in access to healthy foods, below are some key takeaways from the study:

• A variety of partners are interested in food, so bring people together with different interests to implement food-related strategies
• To benefit as many people as possible in your community,  a range of approaches are needed
• Consider evidence when selecting strategies to enhance local food environments
• Check out What Works for Health
• Customize strategies for the needs of your community and measure the results of your implementation.

Learn more about the efforts of the Prize communities to improve their food environments in the full study in the Health Affairs November Issue.

To check out this year’s 2015 Prize winning communities, go to rwjf.org/prize.