United for health to improve urban food environments across five underserved communities: a cross-sector coalition approach.

Background: Cross-sector coalitions can be a powerful vehicle to promote adoption and implementation of evidence-based programs and policies across diverse racial/ethnic communities with a high chronic disease burden. Few studies have examined coalition composition, function, or capacity to promote learning among members.

Methods: We used a mixed methods approach to examine the United for Health coalition's implementation of multiple food environment interventions across five low-income communities of color in Los Angeles, California (USA).

Intrapersonal and Environmental Barriers to Physical Activity Among Blacks and Latinos.

Objective: To understand perceived barriers and facilitators to physical activity (PA) among at-risk African American and Hispanic adolescents and adults in a low-income community.

Design: Qualitative research was conducted in 2014-2015 using focus groups and a sociodemographic survey.

Setting: Three high schools in South Los Angeles, California.

Perceived Barriers and Facilitators to Healthy Eating and School Lunch Meals among Adolescents: A Qualitative Study.

Objectives: We explored how perceived barriers and facilitators influence healthy eating and investigated the acceptability of changes to school lunch meals among adolescents after implementation of the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010.

Methods: We conducted 8 focus groups with adolescents (N = 64) at 3 South Los Angeles high schools. Data collection instruments included a semi-structured guide and questionnaire.

Catalyzing Implementation of Evidence-Based Interventions in Safety Net Settings: A Clinical-Community Partnership in South Los Angeles.

This study is a process evaluation of a clinical-community partnership that implemented evidence-based interventions in clinical safety net settings. Adoption and implementation of evidence-based interventions in these settings can help reduce health disparities by improving the quality of clinical preventive services in health care settings with underserved populations. A clinical-community partnership model is a possible avenue to catalyze adoption and implementation of interventions amid organizational barriers to change.

The prevalence of harmful content on outdoor advertising in Los Angeles: land use, community characteristics, and the spatial inequality of a public health nuisance.

Objectives: Our study sought to examine associations between the content of outdoor advertising and neighborhood ethnic/racial and socioeconomic composition to see whether particular communities disproportionately host harmful content.

Methods: We constructed a spatial database of photographs taken from June 2012 until December 2012 in 7 identically zoned communities in Los Angeles, California, to compare outdoor advertising area and content. We selected communities to contrast by ethnicity/race, income, education, and youth population.

Transforming the urban food desert from the grassroots up: a model for community change.

Confronted by continuing health disparities in vulnerable communities, Community Health Councils (CHC), a nonprofit community-based organization in South Los Angeles, worked with the African Americans Building a Legacy of Health Coalition and research partners to develop a community change model to address the root causes of health disparities within the community's African American population. This article discusses how the CHC Model's development and application led to public policy interventions in a "food desert." The CHC Model provided a systematic approach to engaging impacted communities in support of societal level reforms, with the goal to influence health outcomes.

Putting promotion into practice: the African Americans building a legacy of health organizational wellness program.

A Los Angeles REACH demonstration project led by Community Health Councils, Inc. adapted and implemented an organizational wellness intervention originally developed by the local health department, providing training in incorporating physical activity and healthy food choices into the routine "conduct of business" in 35 predominantly public and private, nonprofit-sector agencies. A total of 700 staff, members, or clients completed the 12-week or subsequently retooled 6-week curriculum.

African Americans' access to healthy food options in South Los Angeles restaurants.

Objectives: We examined availability and food options at restaurants in less affluent (target area) and more affluent (comparison area) areas of Los Angeles County to compare residents' access to healthy meals prepared and purchased away from home. We also considered environmental prompts that encourage the purchase of various foods.

Methods: We designed an instrument to assess the availability, quality, and preparation of food in restaurants.

Leading by example: a local health department-community collaboration to incorporate physical activity into organizational practice.

A multisectoral model promoting sociocultural environmental change to increase physical activity levels among African Americans in Los Angeles County, California, was developed and implemented. This model represents a true collaboration between a local health department and a community lead agency. Community organizations serving targeted areas of the county participated in one or more interventions incorporating physical activity into routine organizational practice, which centered around modeling the behaviors promoted ("walking the talk").

Improving the nutritional resource environment for healthy living through community-based participatory research.

Objectives: To build health promotion capacity among community residents through a community-based participatory model, and to apply this model to study the nutritional environment of an urban area to better understand the role of such resources in residents' efforts to live a healthy life.

Design: A multiphase collaborative study that inventoried selected markets in targeted areas of high African-American concentration in comparison with markets in a contrasting wealthier area with fewer African Americans.

Setting: A community study set in the Los Angeles metropolitan area.