NACDD, with funding support from the CDC Division of Nutrition, Physical Activity, and Obesity (DNPAO), implemented the 5th Annual Action Institute to Increase Walking and Walkability in Decatur, Georgia on April 22 – 25, 2019. Referred to as the Walkability Action Institute (WAI), this multi-day course was implemented for 10 new, interdisciplinary teams who received expert faculty instruction from some of the nation’s most renowned leaders in public health, planning, advocacy, development, disability inclusion, and transportation and community design. The course included amazing keynote presentations, and experiential learning activities such as outdoor inclusive walk audits and scavenger hunts – all to assist attending teams with developing a Team Action Plan of their own respective walkability related strategies to pursue.
The 2019 cohort of teams includes the following locations, who competitively applied for and received travel stipends to attend this year’s course:
- Broward County, FL
- Clackamas County, OR
- Daytona, FL
- Lane County, OR
- Larimer and Weld Counties, CO
- Marshall County, IN
- Maui, HI
- Montgomery County, PA
- Northwest VT
- Spokane, WA
This year’s cohort of teams now marks 51 total teams who have participated across the five-year project period to make lasting PSE changes promoting improved environmental design, municipal policy structure, and systems improvements to improve active transportation. To date, an estimated 500 related changes have reached more than 20,000,000 people across the nation.
For more information on NACDD’s WAI efforts, please visit NACDD’s WAI project page or contact NACDD’s Project Lead, Karma Harris, at kedwards@chronicdisease.org.
PHOTO: WAI course faculty member Karin Korb leads participants through an outdoor walk audit activity in Decatur, GA.