Resources for Steps to Healthier US

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You can contact us at:

Community Guide Branch
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
4770 Buford Highway, Mailstop K-73
Atlanta, GA 30341

Phone: (770) 488-8189
Fax: (770) 488-8462

Email: CommunityGuide@cdc.gov

The Community Guide facilitates Steps to a HealthierUS

Steps to a HealthierUS is a bold new initiative from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and advances President George W. Bush's HealthierUS goal of helping Americans live longer, better, and healthier lives. The purpose of Steps is to enable communities to reduce the burden of chronic disease, by:

• Improving nutrition
• Increasing physical activity
• Preventing tobacco use and exposure
• Increasing tobacco cessation
• Increasing access to and use of appropriate health care services
• Increasing effective self-management of chronic diseases and associated risk factors

The centerpiece of the Steps to a HealthierUS is a five-year cooperative agreement program administered by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).This program combines the strengths and resources of all relevant HHS agencies and programs and improves the lives of Americans through innovative and effective community-based chronic disease prevention and control programs.

Among the resources recommended by Steps to support of program implementation objectives is the Guide to Community Preventive Services (Community Guide). The Community Guide provides evidence-based findings about population-based interventions to promote health and to prevent disease, injury, disability, and premature death, appropriate for use by communities and healthcare systems.

The Community Guide is being developed by the independent Task Force on Community Preventive Services. The Task Force has reviewed or is reviewing population based interventions that address a number of objectives of the Steps initiative including interventions designed to:

• Community-wide information campaigns
• Social support in community settings
• Enhanced school-based physical education

• Smoking bans and restrictions
• Mass media campaigns as part of a multi-component program
• Increasing the unit price of tobacco products
• Reducing patient costs for effective therapies

• Expanding access to vaccination services in medical offices or public health clinics
• Cultural diversity training for health care professionals
• Reducing out of pocket costs for vaccines
• Standing orders protocols to increase adult vaccination

• Diabetes self-management education in community gathering places for adults with Type 2 diabetes
• Diabetes self-management education in the home for adolescents with Type 1 diabetes
• Individually-adapted health behavior change programs

See a complete list of the 78 Community Guide findings published to date.

For more information on the Community Guide see www.thecommunityguide.org or contact Brad Myers at communityguide@cdc.gov or 770-488-8189.

This page last updated July 8, 2003

 Task Force on Community Preventive Services
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