Public Safety Measures

With the shared goal of creating healthier places for people to live, site leaders representing the 7 major multi-sited, multi-sector Convergence initiatives identified Public Safety, as one of four policy priority areas for collective action. Within this arena, they identified two distinct types of safety measures:

Crime and violence (intentional injury) prevention measures that addressed issues such as gangs, drug use in parks, etc. which contribute to adults and children being less physically active; and
Unintentional injury prevention measures such as traffic calming, safe routes to schools, park maintenance and development, etc.

While both types of safety measures represent important strategies that will support increased physical activity and access to healthy food, they entail distinctly different approaches, partners and policy options, many of which have not been explored or developed. Additionally, some of the strategies that could prevent unintentional injury overlap with strategies included in the Land Use and Transportation Planning arena. For these reasons, the strategy session during the Convergence conference on June 1-2, 2008 will focus on crime/violence prevention, and will identify a range of strategies and opportunities for convergence across sites. Next steps and actions in this policy arena will be carried out following the conference.

Discussions of specific topics within this policy arena appear on the Virtual Peer Learning Network (VPLN/Ning).

Click here to view forum policy discussions on the VPLN/Ning.