New research in a joint report by PolicyLink and The Food Trust, Access to Healthy Food and Why It Matters: A Review of the Research, underscores healthy food access as the foundation necessary for reaping the positive benefits associated with healthy food. The research reveals that improving healthy food access in low-income communities and communities of color continues to be an urgent need with nearly 30 million people living in low-income areas with limited access to supermarkets. The webinar features report authors along with a local government official. Speakers discuss how findings from the new report can be used to expand healthy food access in communities across the country.

This toolkit provides  facts, and guidance on how to build, engage, and mobilize a social change movement in your state or community on this critical issue.  The toolkit is wrapped together by a unique theme designed to maximize interest and action on schools foods.

A study indicating what type of products dominate grocery shelves across California, which highlights what is available -  and not available - in grocery stores. The Healthy Stores for a Healthy Community campaign is a statewide collaboration between tobacco use prevention, nutrition, and alcohol prevention partners.

Children consume a significant portion of their daily calories at school; when schools have healthy foods and beverages in cafeterias and vending machines, children eat better. But what if families don’t have access to healthy food when their children come home from school?

Without access to healthy foods, a nutritious diet and good health are out of reach. And access to healthy food brings a triple bottom-line benefit to communities – a revitalized economy, new jobs, and better health. These benefits also advance equity, the fair and just inclusion of all residents in communities.

Join co-sponsors MomsRising and PolicyLink for a healthy food access portal webinar that will draw connections between efforts to bring healthy food to schools and the movement for healthy food access in communities across the country. Speakers will share their successes and strategies for overcoming challenges in their work and provide recommendations to the broader community of advocates and practitioners.

Featured Speakers:
•    Allison Hagey, Associate Director, PolicyLink (moderator)
•    Monifa Bandele, Senior Campaign Director, MomsRising
•    Sheilah Davidson, Policy Program Manager, School Food Focus
•    Dara Cooper, Director, New York Food and Fitness Partnership

Each year, the Trust for America's Health (TFAH) and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) issues this report to examine strategies for addressing the obesity crisis. In this 10th edition of the report, TFAH and RWJF included annual rates and rankings of adult obesity and obesity rate trends by region, age, gender, education and income.

This report examines programs designed to influence individual food choices; presents a summary of evidence-based strategies that encourage healthy shopping and eating habits; and offers recommendations for further research. Given the growth of diet-related diseases as a public health risk in the United States, particularly among poor and minority populations as well as children, many are focused on slowing and reversing this trend. This report, funded by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, seeks to highlight some of the barriers to healthy eating as well as effective intervention strategies to address them.  The Reinvestment Fund summarizes the findings of existing research on healthy food interventions, with a particular focus on intervention strategies that seek to influence an individual’s personal food environment. TRF then highlights programs, or components of programs, that TRF believes have promise.

Limited retail access to healthy foods affects the dietary patterns and health outcomes of many Americans.  In this webinar, speakers discuss how new research and evaluation practices are helping to generate innovative solutions that stimulate change in local communities.

This report, issued May 16, 2013, by the Alameda County Department of Public Health, finds significant public health impacts on bus riders resulting from service cuts and fare hikes.