1. Health by Design Sandy Cummings Marion County Health Department
Introduce self and mention who employs you. Slide contact information should reflect the presenter.
Sandy Cummings
Marion County Health Department

2. Our mission:
To create an environment that promotes physical activity and protects the environment through education, advocacy, and action.
After reading the mission, talk about how this mission is related to your own organizational mission…to emphasize our interconnectedness and why you are a member of HbD.

3. (neighborhoods, communities, transportation systems,
Our focus:
To work on how the built environment
(neighborhoods, communities,
transportation systems,
buildings, regions,
parks, and open spaces)
can promote more active lives.
Since World War II, physical activity has been engineered out of many parts of American life. From elevators and drive-thru restaurants to cul-de-sac suburbs and strip malls, we have become increasingly car-dependent and sedentary.

4. Why promote more active lifestyles?
Read each headline as it comes in…
Children who are overweight have a nearly 80% chance of staying overweight as adults.
Having diabetes used to be a disease mostly experienced by adults. Obesity causes diabetes and today we’re seeing it in many young people.
Obesity costs Indiana 1.6 million dollars per year in health care costs…taxpayers pay ½ of that bill

5. Are Indiana’s adults healthy?
8.1% of adults had diabetes.
8.4% had asthma.
25.3% did not participate in any physical activity in the past month.
35.0% were overweight.
27.8% were obese.
Short answer…no
*Source: Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, Adults (18+ years of age), Indiana, 2006.
Read through the list fairly quickly then add one final comment like … the effect of low physical fitness is comparable to that of hypertension, high cholesterol, diabetes, and even smoking.

6. Are Indiana’s youth healthy?
22.5% of adolescents had asthma.
56.3% were not physically active for at least 60 minutes per day on five or more of the past seven days…Surgeon General’s recommendation
13.8% were overweight.
Short answer…no
*Source: Youth Risk Behavior Survey, Adolescents (grades 9th – 12th), Indiana, 2007.
Obesity takes many years before it harms the target organs so we are only seeing the tip of the iceberg in how physical inactivity will take a toll on public health.

7. Change is needed.
We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.
Albert Einstein
In the words of a famous 20th century thought leader….

8. Health by Design’s approach. . .
... for improved public health, communities also need to become engaged in discussions about transportation & environment.
The environment we live in has everything to do with how we live our lives, where we live, where we work. The average family today spends nearly 20% of their household budget on transportation and transportation systems influence many of our decisions. Health by Design is dedicated to working to create an environment where it is easier to be healthy than unhealthy.

9. Our priority goals:
Increase walking, biking, and other public transit options.
Increase neighborhood, city, and regional connectivity.
Encourage land use decision making that promotes public health.
Reduce dependency on automobiles.

10. Our priorities impact many issues…
Improve air and water quality
Enhance public safety
Increase choices for active living
Promote community and social interaction
Reduce traffic congestion and oil dependency
Decrease accident and fatality rates
Reduce crime…”eyes on the street”
While our coalition came together around health, we absolutely recognize that our work will have many benefits. In fact, many of the organizational members of Health by Design, are more focused on non-heath outcomes. Surely many people in this room are concerned about something on this list.
Our priorities will impact….

11. 1. Increase walking, biking, and other public transit options
Although our priorities are not in any real order, the first one on our list is….
We are a country that thrives on choices. Today in Central Indiana there are few choices for getting around. How many of you are able to walk safely to a store close to home? Can you ride a bike to work? Do you have a bus available to you that is efficient for your daily use? We want to see more choices so that all of us, but especially folks that do not drive, children, elderly, sight impaired, and folks without cars, have access to transportation.
We’ll work toward being able to answer “yes” to these questions.

12. What makes a place walkable?
Convenient destinations
Compact, mixed land uses
High connectivity, including shorter blocks and more intersections
Good walking infrastructure (sidewalks, trails, parks, etc.)
Pleasing aesthetics
You might wonder, what makes a place walkable?
First of all, we need places to walk to. To really see more people walking, we need people to walk while they are accomplishing other goals like going to a friend’s house or going to a store.
Mixed land uses meaning housing, retail, commercial all within walking distance. Segrated zoning which may be necessary to separate manufacturing from residentials areas has really been carried away and now we see neighborhoods that are completing out of range of any place to walk to.

13. What’s more inviting?
We have some lousy or missing sidewalks and then there are excellent, inviting sidewalks. Talk about the new sidewalk amendment.

14. 2. Increase neighborhood, city, and regional connectivity
Some ways connectivity is achieved are by having shorter blocks with inviting and safe crosswalks. Imagine an intersection within a 10 minute or so walk from your house. How inviting and safe does that intersection feel?

15. Traditional Neighborhood
Suburban Development
Traditional Neighborhood
This illustration shows the difference between suburban neighborhoods today and neighborhoods 50 years ago. Features to demonstrate:
Segregation of uses
Low connectivity
Large distances
-We want to create choices for people. Traditional neighborhoods are good because they create choices and opportunities for people.
-How we design our communities now is that there is an increased reliance on cars.
Drawing by Duany Plater Zyberk, in ITE Journal 1989;59:17-18

16. 3. Encourage land use decision making that promotes public health
Even small uses of land can impact public health. This is one little example of how two car parking spots turned into bike parking enables twenty or so bikes to park there.

17. This land doesn’t look very different from stretches of land all around us. How this land is used could support public health more by … move to next slide.

18. Planting trees along the street add shades to the sidewalk which encourages walking and aids in cleaning the air and reducing the street temperature. Bus lane is added and a curb cut out to enable the bus to keep from causing congestion.

19. Here the land use is significantly enhanced by adding retail to the front of the street and it’s likely that there would be housing located above the street level retail. Having the front doors closer to the street makes walking a more viable option and expectation. The density of retail is increased here so that there is more to do in a smaller area making walking around more feasible.

20. 4. Reduce dependency on automobiles
Our last priority is to reduce dependency on the car by adding more choices to our transportation system in Central Indiana.

21. Shared Roads
Notice the sidewalk on this road. How safe would you feel as a pedestrian on this road? You can see that this could be any major street here in Indianapolis. Could you bike safely on this street…you can see that the downtown business district is just down the street but I wouldn’t feel safe biking down this road.

22. Now with added bike lanes, I would feel a little better
Now with added bike lanes, I would feel a little better. At least I’ve been given my own space. The reflective raised dots that line the lane markers will help as well. I still think cars might be traveling a bit too fast on this road for me to feel safe.

23. Now it’s getting better
Now it’s getting better. The crosswalks will definitely slow traffic and hopefully the speed limit would be no more than about 35 on this mixed use, residential road.

24. What can you do? Join Health by Design Prioritize your own issues
Enlist others (neighbors, family, colleagues, city-county councilor members, etc)
Write a letter to the editor on a current affair
Do a walkability assessment in your neighborhood and share the results
Commit to walk or bike more

25. Our members: Concerned Citizens Non-profit organizations Academia
Private industries and businesses
Environmental groups
Planners, designers, architects, and builders
Transportation
Public and environmental health
Recreation and safety personnel
And you?
Marion County Health Department
Alliance for Health Promotion
City of Indianapolis Department of Metropolitan Development and Parks Department
Indiana Departments of Transportation, Health, and Natural Resources
American Heart Association
AARP
Indianapolis Neighborhood Resource Center
IU Department of Public Health, School of Public and Env. Affairs, Center for Aging Research
Central Indiana Soil and Water Conservation District
Hendricks County Health Department
Department of Planning, City of Carmel
100Year
Metropolitan Indianapolis Board of Realtors
Builders Association of Greater Indianapolis
IU Center for Urban Policy and the Environment
Hoosier Rails to Trails Council
And more…

26. Be part of the change you wish to see in our community.
Presenter:
Sandy Cummings
Marion County Health Department
(317)
Change to presenters contact information

27. Contact information:
Health by Design 401 W. Michigan Street Indianapolis, IN
an Alliance for Health Promotion initiative