SUAs that address a range of issues help create confidence for the parties in the agreement, fostering the conditions necessary for successful sharing of resources while reducing the likelihood of termination (ChangeLab Solutions, 2009a and Zimmerman et al., 2013).

Community-based active living strategies (e.g., healthy eating and physical activity promotion) represent priorities for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). In the Communities Putting Prevention to Work (CPPW) program, for example, the local arm in Los Angeles County (LAC) – the Renew Environments for Nutrition, Exercise and Wellness in LA County initiative (RENEW) – focused on addressing three primary objectives: 1) improving the built environment; 2) increasing selleck products access to http://www.selleckchem.com/Akt.html healthy foods; and 3) decreasing sedentary behaviors through system and environmental change ( U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2010 and Bunnell et al., 2012). To address the third objective, RENEW supported several key school-based programs from 2010 to 2012. Among them, the Joint-Use Moving People to Play (JUMPP) Task

Force initiated and completed several SUAs in under-resourced communities with high prevalence of child and adult obesity. Although interest in SUAs is growing, much remains unknown about the processes required to construct and effectively implement them. Few studies have addressed physical activity-related SUAs, and even fewer have taken an in-depth look at the legal components that can foster a mutually beneficial partnership (ChangeLab Astemizole Solutions, 2009a). In the present article, we contribute to this gap in public health practice by reviewing 18 SUAs signed and implemented

in LAC. Where appropriate, we used mixed methods to describe the JUMPP effort, estimate the population reached by the SUA interventions, and examine the benefits of investing in shared-use strategies. Although the concerns of both parties in the agreement are important, the present study centered only on the interests of the school districts, the entities that have the greatest perceived risk of liability and costs (ChangeLab Solutions, 2009a, ChangeLab Solutions, 2009b and National Policy and Legal Analysis Network to Prevent Childhood Obesity (NPLAN), 2010). In 2010, with support from RENEW and guidance on the SUA process from the JUMPP Task Force (Table 1), school districts were identified and selected according to their childhood obesity prevalence (Office of Health Assessment and Epidemiology, Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, 2011), with the highest receiving priority. The first seven eligible districts that provided RENEW with letters of commitment signed by their superintendents were recruited; the final list of districts included: ABC Unified, Compton Unified, El Monte City, Pomona Unified, Mountain View, Pasadena Unified, and the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD).