Community Tools

Following is a list of tools to assist you with addressing health and wellness issues in your community. This list is not comprehensive, but it includes useful tools to help you identify resources as well as promote healthy weight in your community.

 

Environmental Nutrition and Activity Community Tool (ENACT)

ENACT is a concrete menu of strategies designed to help you improve nutrition and activity environments on a local level. These strategies have been organized into seven environments that were carefully selected for their importance in individual and community health.

Each ENACT strategy presents useful information based on current research and practice and includes model policies and programs, hands-on tools, articles and other publications, and resources. The strategies are structured to be interactive so that implementation can become a reality.

The Strategic Alliance developed ENACT to offer community members realistic ways to create positive change in their food and activity environments. ENACT was designed to complement current education and community efforts and to empower local action to address priority issues. Working locally can make healthy eating and regular activity a realistic option for everyone, and can bubble up to affect state and national policy. Click here for more information.

 

Physical Activity Assessment Tools Website

The Physical Activity Assessment Tools website; developed in collaboration with the Wake Forest University Health Sciences, the Penn-Cheyney Center of Excellence for Inner City Health, and the African American Collaborative Obesity Research Network; is an online repository of physical activity assessment tools. The Physical Activity Assessment Tools website provides the opportunity to find and post assessment tools for physical activity and reliability and validation studies for the various assessments. Click here to access the site.

 

THRIVE: Tool for Health and Resilience in Vulnerable Environments

THRIVE is a tool to help people understand and prioritize the factors within their own communities that can help improve health and safety. The tool identifies key factors and allows a user to rate how important that factor might be in the community. In also provides information about how each factor is related to health outcomes and some direction about what to do to address the factor and where to go for more information. Click here for more information.

 

The Community Healthy Weight Network Action Guide

The Community Healthy Weight Network Action Guide is the result of a three-year collaboration between the Duke University Medical School (DUMC) and the University of South Carolina School of Medicine. The objective of the Guide is to provide community-based groups with the tools needed to promote healthy weight. The Guide provides tips on how to build a community network that can promote better nutrition, increased physical activity, and healthy weight. Click here for more information.

 

The Community Tool Box

The Community Tool Box is the world's largest resource for free information on essential skills for building healthy communities. It offers over 7,000 pages of practical guidance in creating change and improvement. Click here for more information.

 

We Can!

We Can! stands for Ways to Enhance Children's Activity & Nutrition. We Can! is a national education program designed for parents and caregivers to help children 8-13 years old stay at a healthy weight.

Parents and caregivers are the primary influencers for this age group. We Can! offers parents and families tips and fun activities to encourage healthy eating, increase physical activity and reduce sedentary or screen time. It also offers community groups and health professionals resources to implement programs and fun activities for parents and youth in communities around the country.

Four of the National Institutes of Health have come together to bring you We Can! The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute in collaboration with the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, and the National Cancer Institute have combined their unique resources and activities as part of We Can! Click here for more information.

 

White House Faith-based and Community Initiatives

Faith-based and community organizations (FBCOs) have a long tradition of helping Americans in need and together represent an integral part of our nation's social service network. Yet, all too often, the Federal government has put in place complicated rules and regulations preventing FBCOs from competing for funds on an equal footing with other organizations. In an effort to addrss this issue, the Federal government has worked through an array of regulatory and policy reforms, legislative efforts, and public outreach to FBCOs to make information about Federal grants more accessible and the application process less burdensome. This initiative has empowered FBCOs to compete more effectively for funds. Click here for more information on grant opportunities and technical assistance resources.