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Our Healthy Community Partnership
 The focus of ACTivate Omaha is to create awareness, advocacy, and excitement about activity and the importance of designing our city for active lifestyles. To get Omahans active will take a massive awareness campaign with planned community activities and a thrust on enhancing the built environment to support active living.
The awareness program will recognizes that each person, each racial and ethnic group, each worksite, each resident in every part of Douglas County has individual needs and their own cultural characteristics and receptivity to health messages. The program expects to see improvements in its health status in terms of individuals engaged in regular physical activity and an environment that supports it, resulting in positive health benefits.
An advocacy group will be developed to work with our city planners and developers to consider and build for active lifestyles and smart growth.
ACTivate Omaha brings together 20 multi-disciplinary, cross section of organizations representing business, city planning, health care providers, workplaces, and community groups. Under the umbrella of Our Healthy Community Partnership, diverse partners will act as a catalyst for communities to create and implement their own activities and advocate for designing our city to better accommodate active lifestyles. The Joslyn Castle Institute is part of this partnership.
DR. RICHARD JACKSON PRESENTS ON URBAN SPRAWL & PUBLIC HEALTH
Why Good Design is Better Than an Apple a Day
April marked the 150th Anniversary of the American Institute of Architects. In celebrating this milestone, AIA Nebraska hosted a lecture presented by Dr. Richard Jackson, MD, MPH, Professor of Environmental Health, University of California, Berkeley School of Public Health. Dr. Jackson's presentation can be viewed online at the AIA Nebraska website.
For many of us, things just don't feel quite right. We are using more land, water, energy, and natural resources. We get fatter, and the planet gets hotter. Young people worry about the future, and older folks wonder what went wrong. Is this all inevitable, or could a real synergy of health and how we create our environments produce better results? Dr. Jackson layed out health and environment data and proposed ways that health and environment can reverse our course and create a sustainable future for our children. He showed how the shaping of our built environment shapes our own well-being and our future, and how architects can lead major improvements in both the quality of our lives and the quality of our environments.
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ACTivate Omaha has received a $200,000 grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) and Active Living by Design. The program will fund 25 cities across the U.S. to develop a five-year program of attention to the relationships of urban design to human health. JCI assisted with the RWJF proposal and JCI President W. Cecil Steward with three other health coalition representatives traveled to Chapel Hill, NC, for the presentation to the Foundation. This program will explore how our cities and communities are (are not) planned and designed for significant health benefits." The RWJF is very open about its intent to create a national revolution in the planning and design of the form and function of cities.
ACTivate Omaha will challenge Omaha city planners to link trails and build activity into the fast-moving city projects. These will be long-lasting opportunities built into the fabric of the city. Behavior change leading to community change comes in small steps. For individual Omaha adults and children, change builds until it becomes part of everyday living. By creating a culture within the city and county that “we’re active here,” ACTivate Omaha can reinforce healthful behaviors in workplaces, schools, stores, homes, and public places.
For more information about ACTivate Omaha, visit their website at www.activateomaha.org
News
Activate Omaha launches Sprint through the Holidays
To help Omahan's avoid gaining the the Seasonal Seven (the average weight most Americans gain between Thanksgiving and New Year’s, Activate Omaha has launched its Sprint through the Holidays Program. The program allows individuals to register online at the Activate Omaha website. Each week, participants will receive an email with tips focusing on nutrition, physical activity and stress management. An interactive food guide, serving size recommendations, calorie counter, pedometer and walking log are also available. For more information about the program see: www.activateomaha.com
Also see:
Holiday health tips available online
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