National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL)

NCSL Leadership for Healthy Communities (LHC) Initiative

State legislators can play an important role in fostering healthy community design. The National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) will be tracking state-level active living oriented policies and best practices to provide legislators in depth background information to better enable proactive policy-making. NCSL will:

Support education efforts for state legislators about the causal relationship between active living and public health and how active living is impacted by community design and transportation policies that state legislators can address through legislation.
Encourage state legislators to work more closely with local government officials and community leaders--in their capacity as both policy makers and as stakeholders within the community--to ensure that active living policies adopted at the state level can be effectively implemented on the ground.

NCSL will support education and outreach activities, develop informational resources and provide technical assistance to legislators across the Nation. Specific services and products include:

LegisBrief that will describe the links between active living and public health and the role of state policies in supporting active living efforts.
An article for NCSL's magazine State Legislatures that will discuss the relationship between physical activity and public health, and how policies developed and implemented in collaboration by state and local governments can incorporate active living into community design decision making to achieve public health and smart growth benefits.
Informational and training sessions at NCSL's 2004 Annual Meeting in Salt Lake City.
Opportunities for legislators to receive regular electronic Active Living updates.
Web page dedicated to active living on NCSL's web site at www.ncsl.org.
A searchable database of active living legislation.
Detailed case studies of successful state and local efforts to develop and implement policies that encourage active living through community design.

As always, NCSL will provide technical assistance to legislatures in states that are considering bills to encourage active living through community design. This may include testimony by NCSL staff or LHC partners at legislative committee meetings; state-specific policy research; and bill review and drafting assistance.

For further information or to request assistance, please contact Leslie Robbins (303-364-7700; leslie.robbins@ncsl.org.)