Inland Empire Leaders Convene in Ontario for first Healthy Cities Summit.

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Decision-makers, city and county officials, health advocates and practitioners came together on June 6, 2018 during the first Inland Empire Healthy Cities Summit held at the Ontario Convention Center. The full day event included dynamic and informative sessions organized around three community development topics: 1) Active Transportation, 2) Access to Healthy Foods and, 3) Tobacco Control.  Speakers addressed innovative and promising programs and practices to improve the region’s health outcomes.  Kicking off the program, City of Ontario’s Mayor Paul Leon described how over the years the city’s efforts for improving the community’s health played a central role in the city’s successful bid for the Transformative Climate Communities (TCC) grant. Joining the Mayor during the morning plenary was Jonathan O. Skinner, City of Lake Elsinore Community Services Director who focused on the city’s recent efforts to integrate health in all policies through the Healthy Lake Elsinore Initiative. A series of breakout sessions offered opportunities for attendees to choose from topics addressing environmental justice, adverse childhood and community experiences, safe routes to schools, ordinances to curb smoking and sugary drink intakes and community design. Dr. Geoffrey Leung, Chief of Family Medicine at the Riverside University Health System-Public Health Administration, delivered the afternoon plenary presenting evidence that integrating health into how we plan, design, build and operate our communities makes financial sense from a chronic disease/injury prevention perspective.

Representatives from each county had an opportunity to reflect upon their journeys through the healthy communities path and start envisioning immediate and future milestones to continue to improve health outcomes in the Inland Empire. Dr. Elizabeth Baca from the Governor’s Office of Planning and Research shared from a macro level perspective her observations about the day’s proceedings. They included:  As we continue to move forward, we must include youth as part of conducting robust community engagement; recognize and support our partners’ efforts; look at data to help us measure up progress and inform policy, use it to celebrate accomplishments; leverage new state policy to help move healthy communities efforts forward such as SB1383, AB617 and SB1000; think about economic development and business entities as key partners for health equity; re-think conceptions about land use densities from an efficiency perspective; the small steps count towards big actions through a ripple effect that can contribute to improving the social determinates of health; seek new partnerships; try new, non-traditional approaches for addressing pernicious and chronic challenges and lastly, do not forget about self-care—burnout could weaken effectiveness while doing this work. The event was organized in conjunction with the 9th National Innovative Communities Conference.  It was sponsored by the Lewis-San Antonio Healthy Communities Institute, ReachOut, Riverside University Health System Public Health, Kaiser Permanente, American Planning Association Inland Empire, California Health Collaborative, PlaceWorks, Raimi+Associates and Michael Baker International.