Local Project Awarded National Grant to Promote Active Living

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
November 18, 2003

Contact Information:
Amy Schmit, Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus – (716) 843-7515

Buffalo, NY - The Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus (BNMC) in partnership with the Allentown and Fruit Belt neighborhoods today announced that it has received a $200,000 national grant to support a Healthy Communities Initiative to increase active living and encourage healthier lifestyles. The new initiative is part of Active Living by Design, a national program established to create, enhance and promote environments that make it safe and convenient for people to be more physically active. Funding for the project is provided by The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

"We are thrilled to be one of 25 partnerships across the country selected – from a field of over 960 applicants – for this honor," says Thomas R. Beecher, Jr., chair of the BNMC. "Working with our community partners, we will help both neighborhood residents and BNMC institution employees increase the level of physical activity in their daily routines."

With the five-year grant, the Healthy Communities Initiative will address neighborhood infrastructure and policy-related opportunities to promote active living. It also will develop a community driven communication and education campaign. These actions are designed to facilitate physical activity throughout the medical campus, the Fruit Belt and Allentown communities.

The Healthy Communities Initiative will also build on ArtWalk, a series of walking routes throughout the BNMC and the two neighborhoods that uses art and cultural installations as inducements for pedestrian activity. This a local program led by arts and education organizations in collaboration with Allentown, BNMC, Fruit Belt, business leaders and the Wellness Institute of Greater Buffalo.

"The project also includes a very exciting worksite health promotion piece," says Phil Haberstro, director of the Wellness Institute of Greater Buffalo and member of the Healthy Communities Initiative partnership. "We have an opportunity for the BNMC institutions to assess their current employee health promotion efforts and to work together to improve employee health."

The need for such an initiative is clear. According to a 2002 study conducted by the Research Center for Stroke and Heart Disease, Buffalo residents are overweight. The local overweight rate is three times the national average and two times higher than the state average.

In many communities, it is difficult to walk or ride a bicycle to work, school and other destinations. Recent studies have suggested that neighborhood design and a lack of options for transportation may contribute to inactivity and obesity. National data show that nearly 3 out of 4 American adults do not get enough regular physical activity, and the number of overweight children has doubled since 1980. In New York State, the economic impact of physical inactivity is estimated to exceed $3.5 billion annually.

"Community design and policy barriers often prevent people from leading physically active lives," said Richard Killingsworth, director of Active Living by Design. "The Healthy Communities Initiative grant supports an innovative, interdisciplinary and community-based partnership that will create places, programs, and policies that help weave physical activity into people's daily lives."

"Allentown residents and business owners are happy to partner with the medical campus and the Fruit Belt in this initiative. Encouraging increased pedestrian activity will both facilitate healthier lifestyles and strengthen the connectivity between the two neighborhoods and with the BNMC," says Jonathan White, former president of the Allentown Association and Allentown's representative on the BNMC Board of Directors.

"As a Fruit Belt resident and church leader, I believe it is beneficial to partner with the BNMC and our neighbors in Allentown to encourage physical activity and healthy living among residents," says Rev. Michael Chapman of St. John Baptist Church. "An important aspect of the program is its emphasis on critical infrastructure improvements that will facilitate walking in the area."

The BNMC was founded in April 2001 by the University at Buffalo, Roswell Park Cancer Institute, Kaleida Health, Hauptman-Woodward Medical Research Institute and the Buffalo Medical Group Foundation. Its mission is to cultivate a world-class, urban medical campus on 100 acres in downtown Buffalo. To learn more, go to www.bnmc.org.

Active Living by Design is a $16.5-million national program of The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and is based at the School of Public Health at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. More information about Active Living by Design can be found at www.activelivingbydesign.org.

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, based in Princeton, N.J., is the nation's largest philanthropy devoted exclusively to health and health care. For more information, go to www.rwjf.org.

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