Big Cities Chronic Disease Community of Practice Information
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About the Big Cities Community of Practice The Big Cities Chronic Disease Community of Practice (BC-COP) consists of health officials or senior-level chronic disease programmatic staff from local health departments representing the 50 largest cities and metropolitan areas in the United States. The group's goal is to develop strategies for addressing chronic disease prevention for local health departments serving large populations and to serve as a unified voice in national policy discussions while maintaining communication with communities impacted by proposed policies. The group was formed in May 2007, and the two key priority areas identified after a Nov. 2009 meeting were improving school nutrition and reducing consumption of sugar sweetened beverages. In 2011, physical activity and built environments were identified as a new priority area. There is a large Big Cities work group as well as smaller committees on each of these priority areas. Priority Areas The current priority areas for the Big Cities work group are the following: 1. Improving school nutrition. 2. Reducing consumption of sugar sweetened beverages. 3. Create a built environment that fosters physical activities within communities Additional Information Big Cities Reach out to Promote Nutrition The NACCHO Big Cities work group wrote a letter to congress to encourage the federal government's reauthorization of the federal child nutrition programs that includes supporting healthy eating among the nation's children. These city and metropolitan health departments stress the need to curb the obesity epidemic and utilize policy opportunities such as the upcoming reauthorization. |