America is experiencing another British invation in the form of Jamie Oliver. Some of my friends in the US are being rather unkind me these days. Their complaint: Jamie Oliver is only doing his food series, scheduled to air in March, as a marketing exercise. His work in the UK seemed genuine enough they say, but the Huntington, West Virginia series is simply another reality show that claims to be saving a bunch of "regular" folks from a stay in an intensive care…

The lion's share of ARRA funds are just starting to flow into the economy. Last week the Department of Transportation announced $1.5 billion dollars in funding from the Transportation Investments Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) program. Applications totalled $60 billion, reflecting tight budgets at the state & local levels.

Complete Streets measures to increase physical activity were evident in many of the grant applications.

Click on the link for additional…

Health Affairs (Web Exclusives) confirms that obesity is the leading cost driver in medical care across all payer sources. Complications associated with obesity, primarily chronic disease, accounted for the increase in Medicare spending from 1987-2006.

Annual Medical Spending Attributable to Obesity: Payer-and service-specific estimates

July 2009…

I found the report Measuring the Effects of Sprawl very helpful in understanding evidence of the impact of land use decisions on obesity and physical activity. As a planner I needed to understand the evidence that is the foundation for health communities. Although the report was released nearly seven years ago, it was the first national study on the subject.

Excerpt from press realease…

Recent polls show that a not-so-insignificant proportion of the public thinks the H1N1 epidemic was more hype than health threat. Perhaps references to the 1918 epidemic led the average person to believe that we would see patients packed into hospital rooms and long lines out the door of emergency departments. Thankfully, it was the public health system that prevented such scenes from becoming reality.

An opinion piece in the Wisconsin Rapids Tribune places an…

Activities to document our food environment are gaining momentum. The USDA released a web-based tool that provides several food & physical activity indicators for all counties in the nation.

The Atlas assembles statistics on three broad categories of food environment factors:

• Food Choices—Indicators of the community's access to and acquisition of healthy, affordable food, such as: access and proximity to a grocery store; number of foodstores and…

The Journal of the American Medical Association has made obesity and chronic illness articles in its 2/17/2010 issue available free of charge. The childhood obesity epidemic is well documented; however, substantial change is hard to find. These articles should be read by every school board, city council, and state house representative in the nation.

Healthcare reform community health provisions provided some hope; however, healthcare reform has become a political football. Let us hope…

The new report card that compares the health of U.S. counties was named the “Best Prevention Idea of the Week,” while the study showing that poorly fitting condoms contribute to improper use was named “Worst Prevention Idea of the Week.”…

The authors confirm that we live in an obesogenic environment nearly 24-7.

Authors: Thomas A. Farley, MD, MPH; Erin T. Baker, MS; Lauren Futrell, RD, MPH; Janet C. Rice, PhD

Abstract & Introduction

Objectives. We assessed the availability and accessibility of energy-dense snacks in retail stores whose primary merchandise was not food and whether these varied by store type, region, or socioeconomic…

I love this program that Kaiser and EBP are sponsoring together! Do you have something like this in your area?

"The Trails Challenge program is a self-paced program, designed to…

"Obesity, glucose intolerance, and hypertension in childhood are strongly linked with premature death from endogenous causes in young adulthood and middle age, according to the results of a new epidemiological study in a cohort of American Indian children ."…

The Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco (FRBSF) publishes the Community Development Investment Review. FRBSF's Community Affairs Department created the Center for Community Development to research & raise the visibility of the latest efforts in providing capital to low-income and/or economically fragile communities. The summer 2009 issue (Volume 5, Issue 3) was dedicated to the impact of place/community on health.

The spectrum of disciplines &…

We are very happy that Ning has written a blog post mentioning the D4H Social Network!

"...Dialogue for Health “tackles provocative subjects by providing a Web-based platform for interaction and discussion.” …

Congratulations Suzanne Petroni!

Read PHI News Release…

The Disparities Reducing Advances Project (DRA) recommendations forwarded to me a bit after Christmas. I am just getting a chance (day off) to go through emails and forward useful information. I thought this report was an ok post for this network. I am certain some of you will find the DRA website useful. I have never heard of the project, but it is handy if you need a crash course on health disparities and/or social determinants of health. A real diamond mine of…

Hello, for those of you thinking of using twitter to engage a larger audience, here's a great article from Community Spark! Check them out at:

http://www.communityspark.com/

Community Spark: A beginner’s guide to building a presence on Twitter…