HEAC Program Goals and Design
Our Approach
Healthy Eating, Active Communities models a comprehensive approach to obesity prevention that is place based, policy oriented, and community driven.
HEAC works to prevent childhood obesity by changing the environments children inhabit, so that these environments encourage healthy choices. To achieve lasting change, HEAC focuses on improving policies and institutional practices. And to ensure changes that work on the ground, HEAC pursues these goals through fostering partnerships within local communities, and through linking the local work to statewide and national efforts.
HEAC co-sponsor and funding partner, The Kaiser Permanente National Community Benefit Program, is working with The California Endowment to share lessons and develop joint strategies with other funders. Similar in design to HEAC, Kaiser's Healthy Eating/Active Living initiative has sites in Northern California and Colorado.
Youth Involvement
Youth serve as peer mentors in school, develop leadership experience, and conduct community assessments. Selected youth participate in the Statewide Youth Board for Obesity Prevention. They gain valuable lessons about government by doing research, and by developing a policy platform that reflects youth priorities.
Community Building
To support all of this, HEAC has assembled a network of organizations with expertise beyond nutrition and physical activity. These organizations provide technical assistance in: education, medicine, public health, youth organizing, recreation, community design, health law, environmental protection, marketing and advertising, and more.
Community Grants
During the first phase of HEAC, six local collaboratives were granted funding to achieve change across five specific sectors: schools, after school programs, neighborhoods, food and beverage media and advertising, and health. During Phase II of the program, activities will focus in on two, redefined sectors: schools, including school-based after school programs and neighborhood, including community-based after school programs, as well as health care. For more information on this component go to Community Grants and Grantee Profiles.
Program Support
To bolster the program, grants were made to a variety of agencies to provide technical support to local collaboratives and other groups across the state engaged in reducing environmental risk factors for obesity and diabetes. Technical support areas focus on local, state and national policy and advocacy, media strategies, community and youth leadership development, strategies for affecting food and physical environments in schools and communities, and support for the collaborative process. Throughout the program, grantees attend meetings and forums and have networking opportunities, linking local collaboratives with other components of the program. For more information on the Technical Support resources available for this program go to Technical Support.
Statewide Policy Advocacy
State policy change is an essential component to the program. Agencies providing program support and others participate in a statewide network to develop, implement and sustain statewide policy and advocacy strategies for reducing environmental risk factors for diabetes and obesity in California. For more information on this component, download the Preventing Obesity in California Brochure (
475k PDF Document), part of HEAC Statewide Policy Advocacy.
Communications
A host of communications and public affairs components, coordinated through The California Endowment's Communication and Public Affairs Department, are being used to frame the issue of creating healthy environments for children, and to advance the work of the individual local collaboratives and of the larger program.
Evaluation
An evaluation component supports grantees to determine baseline measures and progress toward goals as well as capturing successes and emerging models from the local collaboratives. In addition, the evaluation measures the impact of the program on environmental factors that influence health, including local policy change, programs instituted, increased participation in programs and services, changes to school foods and decreased local advertising and marketing of unhealthy foods to children. For more information on this component go to Evaluation.
