![]() Mentation of Walk El Paso increased awareness of the need to change the built environment and address safety issues to help people get out of their homes and participate in physical activity. Community activities included summer playground programs employee wellness programs improvements to the built environment healthy cooking programs and dissemination of information on community resources, such as faith-based organizations, recreation centers, and trails. ![]() School activities included enhanced physical education curricula, healthy vending machine policies, increased healthy meal choices, school gardens, and safe routes to school. ![]() The program brought together partners from all sectors-schools, communities, health centers, the media, and academia-and engaged them in working toward a common vision. The program aimed to reduce adult obesity, increase daily consumption of fruits and vegetables, increase child and adult engagement in physical activity, and increase child engagement in school physical education. “The objectives for Steps to a Healthier Austin were comprehensive from the start,” said Huang. The scope of the childhood obesity problem in the intervention area was measured and established:ġ5 percent of high school students were identified as overweight.Ĩ5 percent of high school students were not meeting recommended nutrition guidelines by eating five or more servings of fruits and vegetables each day.ħ1 percent of high school students had not been physically active for a total of 60 minutes per day for 5 or more of the past 7 days.Ħ9 percent of high school students did not attend a daily physical education class.Īdditional statistics on the proportion of overweight students in Austin/Travis County according to different demographic categories are shown in Figure 6-2. Compared with the rest of Travis County, twice as many people in this area were living in poverty, the median income was 60 percent lower, and the unemployment rate was 33 percent higher. The racial/ethnic make-up of this area included 41 percent Hispanics, 39 percent non-Hispanic whites, and 14 percent African Americans. The intervention encompassed 20 contiguous zip code areas comprising 412 square miles, covering primarily east Austin. This program targeted 460,000 high-risk, racially diverse residents within areas of Austin identified as having the highest concentrations of obesity ( Figure 6-1). Texas applied these lessons learned in developing Steps to a Healthier Austin, the city’s first large-scale, funded, comprehensive chronic disease prevention program. Tobacco Prevention Initiative cost approximately $3 per capita and resulted in a 36 percent reduction in tobacco use among students in grades 6–12 and a 27 percent reduction in tobacco use among adults. Huang noted, for example, that implementation of the comprehensive Texas Although multicomponent interventions require greater investment of resources, these costs are offset by greater benefits in health outcomes. Huang commented that successful comprehensive health programs target parents as well as children, since parents are responsible for shaping the home health environment. To put this grant to best use, the region drew on its experience with the Texas Tobacco Prevention Initiative in Travis County, which showed that multi-component interventions involving schools and communities, the media, smoking-cessation programs, and law enforcement were more effective than single-component interventions in reducing tobacco use. Identification of an obesity problem and health disparities among its population enabled the county to compete successfully for a Steps to a Healthier United States grant from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to address obesity, asthma, and diabetes. Philip Huang, Medical Director for the Austin/Travis County Health and Human Services Department, described health initiatives carried out in Austin and Travis County. ![]() CITY OF AUSTIN/TRAVIS COUNTY HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES DEPARTMENT ![]()
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