November 2009 - Program Updates

OCDPA Working Towards Healthier Communities

The Ontario Chronic Disease Prevention Alliance (OCDPA) is working towards healthier communities through the Ministry of Health Promotion’s Healthy Communities Fund. Over the next year, the OCDPA and its Project Partners will develop a toolkit to help a wide range of audiences to move forward on healthy public policies at the local level. This project builds on existing and ongoing work of the OCDPA, its Project Partners, and related stakeholders.

The Toolkit to Healthier Communities is an extension of OCDPA’s Common Message project and will help address issues related to factors which shape one’s ability to make healthy choices: “availability” and “accessibility”. Availability of and accessibility to healthy living conditions influence an individual’s decision to take up healthy behaviours and impact the health of those living in a community. Increasing the availability of and accessibility to healthy living conditions through policy change can help build healthier communities.