Nemours Children’s Health System, Division of Health & Prevention Services, has long been involved in childhood obesity issues and policy in Delaware.
Nemours received a Partnerships to Improve Community Health (PICH) award from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. As part of this award, Nemours contracted with Cedar Creek Planners to develop a system for measuring how a local government’s comprehensive plan addresses various public health issues. How a community is planned and built can have a direct effect on the health of its residents. Is it walkable? Are health facilities accessible to all? Is healthy food available? Can older citizens age in place and stay healthy and active?
Cedar Creek worked with Nemours to develop a set of 50 comprehensive plan measures and 29 measures to determine implementation of the plan. The Healthy Living and Active Design Scorecard measures the strength and comprehensiveness of a local government’s comprehensive plan, as well as the implementation status of zoning codes and other related policies and ordinances.
Because of her background in journalism and graphic design, Lee Ann designed the scorecard to be informative to everyday, non-technical readers – teaching them key planning concepts such as “Complete Streets,” “Safe Routes to Schools,” “Aging in Place,” and “Third Places.”
Nemours and Cedar Creek presented the scorecard at the 2016 Active Living Research Conference in Clearwater, Fla..
The development and validation of this Scorecard is made possible with funding from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.