The Cleveland–Cuyahoga County Food Policy Coalition: “We Have Evolved”

Abstract

Several pieces of legislation passed in Cleveland, Ohio, from 2007 to 2011, focused on improving the city’s food environment through urban agriculture initiatives. We used qualitative, case study methods, including interviews with 7 key informants, to examine the policy development process and investigate the role of the Cleveland–Cuyahoga County Food Policy Coalition in developing and implementing 4 pieces of legislation. In this article, we focus on 2 pieces of legislation: zoning designation of an urban garden and allowance of small farm animals and bees on residential property. Five key themes emerged: impetus for policy came from community needs; education and raising awareness helped mitigate barriers; a cultural shift took place among policy makers; social connections and individual champions were needed; and concerns over food access and health influenced policy decisions. Legislative actions are important tools to influence the nutrition environment, as long as they are based on local needs and context.

Predictors of Farmers’ Market Shopping among People Receiving Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program Benefits

“…Second, these cities had a significant number of census tracts that are low income with low access to full‐service supermarkets (i.e., food deserts) (U. S. Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service, ). Third, since 2010, FMs have been implemented as a community‐level strategy to address food access challenges in these cities (Walsh, Taggart, Freedman, Trapl, & Borawski, ). At the time of data collection, these cities had higher access to FMs compared to state and national trends (CDC, ).…”

Toward a Community Impact Assessment for Food Policy Councils: Identifying Potential Impact Domains

“…Existing FPC literature describes council and network structures (Freedman & Bess, 2011;Harper et al, 2009), activities and food system priorities (Scherb, Palmer, Frattaroli, & Pollack, 2012), and developing partnerships as a mechanism to facilitate food system change (Clayton, Frattaroli, Palmer, & Pollack, 2015). Several case studies describe how individual FPCs influence policies and suggest impacts those policies could have on their communities (McCartan & Palermo, 2017;Walsh, Taggart, Freedman, Trapl, & Borawski, 2015). However, there are no studies that systematically evaluate the impact that a large sample of FPCs are likely to have on policies, systems, and environments within their communities.…”

Evaluating Food Policy Councils Using Structural Equation Modeling

“…Councils, task forces, and coalitions have formed around the country to respond to complex social issues including substance use prevention (Florin, Mitchell, Stevenson & Klein, ; Florin et al., ), health promotion (Butterfoss, Goodman & Wandersman, ; Butterfoss & Kegler, ), and family violence (Allen, Javdani, Lehrner & Walden, ; Allen et al., ). In recent years, collaborative models have been applied in response to growing concerns about obesity (Huang et al., ), access to affordable healthy food (Walsh, Taggart, Freedman, Trapl & Borawski, ), and food system sustainability (Hassanein, ). The aim of the current study was to apply existing empirical models regarding the effectiveness of collaborative settings to the specific context of Food Policy Councils (FPCs).…”

“…Synergy allows the council to efficiently pursue policy, systems, and environmental‐level (PSE) changes that impact the complex food system in their community. A specific example of PSE change is drafting a model zoning policy to increase access to farmers’ markets in an area or to protect community gardens, which can be an important food source for low‐income residents (Walsh et al., ). PSE changes, or changing the context in which people make health‐related choices, can impact distal outcomes in the community (Brennan, Castro, Brownson, Claus & Orleans, ; Bunnell et al., ).…”