Objective
In 2009, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) appropriated $650 million in funding to the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to implement proven prevention and wellness strategies to create a healthier nation. Collaboratively, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health developed a new program titled Communities Putting Prevention to Work (CPPW) to 1) increase levels of physical activity, improve nutrition, and decrease obesity rates, and 2) decrease smoking prevalence, teen smoking initiation, and exposure to secondhand smoke. The initiative emphasized policy, systems, and environmental change and provided state and community funding to implement evidence-based interventions for tobacco use control and obesity prevention. Specifically, CDC funded 50 communities proportionate to population size and to the goals of proposed community objectives. The grants ranged from $1 million for small communities to more than $30 million for large communities.
A critical component of CPPW included funding 10 national nonprofit organizations at approximately $1 million each for a 24-month period (July 2010–July 2012) to provide technical assistance and guidance to CPPW-funded communities in implementing various public health interventions. National organizations can play a critical role in community disease prevention and health promotion. Eligible applicants were public or private nonprofit organizations with an established (2 years or longer) national outreach infrastructure, a documented history of health outcomes change resulting from previous projects or campaigns related to tobacco control or obesity prevention, and a national reach that included established networks or affiliates in 5 or more of the 10 HHS regions. Through a competitive process, national organizations were selected on the basis of the following criteria: work plan, organizational capacity and structure, staffing and management plan, evaluation plan, sustainability, and budget narrative.