The Healthy States Initiative, a partnership among CSG and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, hosted nine Web conferences that examined public health issues affecting state government and offered examples of promising practices. The Web conferences provided a base for state legislators to learn from one another and gather valuable information from health experts to create state responses to public health issues including smoking, diabetes, HIV/AIDS, oral health and cancer. This tool kit includes compact discs of all nine archived Web conferences and the published issue briefs listed below.

Prevention Works: Promising Strategies for Heart-Healthy and Stroke-Free States

Vaccine Safety: What Legislators Need to Know

Healthy Learners: Promising Practices in Coordinated School Health Programs

Protecting Precious Smiles: How States Prevent Oral Diseases and Curb Costs

No Ifs, Ands or Butts: Proven Anti-Smoking Strategies for States

Preventing Diabetes and its Complications: What Works in the Hispanic Community

Protecting America's Youth: Schools and Communities Tackle Youth Sexual Risk Behaviors

Protecting Our Communities: Programs to Reduce Adult Immunization Disparities

Reducing Colorectal Cancer: Screening, Access and Services in Minority and Underserved Communities

Click here for more information, view the archive and access the resource links.

Congress has recognized poor nutrition habits and sedentary lifestyles as two key factors in childhood obesity and obesity-related disease. What happens in our schools is vital to addressing the epidemic of childhood obesity. Thus Congress has mandated that every school district with a federally funded school meal program develop and implement a local wellness policy by the beginning of the 2006-2007 school year. Click the link above to hear the discussion from Yibo Wood, nutritionist, U.S. Department of Agriculture; Sen. Rosa Franklin, Washington State Senate; and Wanda Shockey, director, child nutrition unit, Arkansas Department of Education.

Click here for more information, view the archive and access the resource links.

Only 2 percent of children eat the recommended daily number of servings from all five major food groups. More than 80 percent of children and adolescents eat too much fat and more than 90 percent eat too much saturated fat. Obesity is an epidemic. Part of the solution to the obesity problem is to improve the nutritional environment and the types of food offered in schools. The panelists addressing this issue included John Perkins, senior policy adviser for food and nutrition, Texas Department of Agriculture; Sen. Deborah Ortiz, California State Senate; and Sen. Daniel Foster, West Virginia State Senate.