Running head: COMPREHENSIVE SYSTEMS THINKING

Comprehensive Systems Thinking Annette Spellman, Chris Lema, Steven Schneider Walden University

COMPREHENSIVE SYSTEMS THINKING Comprehensive Systems Thinking What is the current state of tourism in the area? Tourism is a big part of the city Monterey. With nearly 4 million visitors a year it rates as one of the top tourist attractions in the

nation. Experts expect the economic growth to continue and Monterey officials are doing with by focusing on environmental assets and on ecotourism. What landmarks, both natural and manmade, currently exist that would appeal to tourists and can be used in your planning? There are several things for tourist to do while at Monterey. There is the National Marine Sanctuary which ensures preservation of the marine environment. You have the Steinbeck Plaza which has several retail shopping facilities. Montereys Old Fishermans Wharf where you can dine, sightsee, and there are cultural attractions there as well. Monterey is also well known for their golf courses. Pebble Beach is one of the most popular golf courses in the world and this attracts several golfers to play this one and several others. There are also several museums and exhibits that you can visit. What is the dominant culture of the area? There is really no dominant culture in Monterey. The culture is as diverse as the region itself. With part of the vision that the local leaders want to do is to preserve the history of the area and culture but to continue to grow the tourism within the area. What would be the appeal for those of other cultures? The reason why this appeals to so many cultures is because there is so much to do. You can look at history, marine life, hiking, biking, shopping, golfing, etc. Having so many options brings so many different cultures to the area. Just over the last few years more convention centers have been built so now businesses are coming to hold meetings and summits. With all of these attractions the diversity is a benefit that helps the tourism in this area.

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Who will be the target market? Our target audience is children and families, with the goals of improving access to affordable healthy foods; improving opportunities for physical activity; and enhancing economic, social, service and built environments to assure that all families have healthy choices no matter where they live, work, play or go to school.

Obesity prevention must be a concerted family effort since children are not solely responsible for their food choices. We hope to impress upon families the importance of not only knowing which foods are nutritionally valuable, but also healthy ways to maintain or lose weight. This can be further enhanced by increasing child participation in the healthcare aspect of their communitys activities. Residents will give educational talks to patients, parents, and families, increasing awareness and hopefully shaping a healthier culture. What local groups will likely support you? Pediatric Nutrition Surveillance System

(PedNSS): The Pediatric Nutrition Surveillance System (PedNSS) provides data on children from birth to age 19 enrolled in the California Health and Disability Program (CHDP). These children are all low-income or high-risk medically. In Monterey County, among children ages 25 years, 17.3% are at-risk for overweight (85-95% BMI for age and gender), and another 18.5% are overweight (>95% BMI for age and gender). This means that over one-third (35.8%) of Monterey County CHDP enrolled children are either overweight or at-risk for overweight. In comparison, this is slightly higher than the 33.8% of 2-5 year olds enrolled in CHDP in California overall that are either overweight or at-risk for overweight. The American Academy of Pediatrics has issued guidelines recommending that parents limit their childrens TV viewing to not more than two hours of quality

California Healthy Kids Survey (CHKS): The California Healthy Kids Survey (CHKS) collected self-reported height and weight data on children in grades 7, 9, and 11 in public schools

COMPREHENSIVE SYSTEMS THINKING throughout the state. The results for Monterey County schools that participated in the survey reveal that a substantial number of students are either overweight or at-risk of overweight. For Monterey County children, 20% of 7th grade students, 19% of 9th grade students, and 18% of 11th grade students were at-risk of overweight (85%-95% BMI). This is very similar to the results for California overall, where 21% of 7th graders, 19% of 9th graders, and 17% of 11th graders were at-risk of overweight. In addition, 20% of 7th grade students, 15% of 9th grade students, and 18% of 11th grade students in Monterey County were overweight (>95% BMI). These rates are somewhat higher than the state overall, which found that 14% of 7th graders, 14% of 9th graders, and 13% of 11th graders were overweight.

Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) Recreational Trails Program: Federal transportation funds benefit recreation by making funds available to the States to develop and maintain recreational trails and trail-related facilities for both non motorized and motorized recreational trail uses.

US Department of Health and Human Services: This site tracks the success of the Healthy People 2010 objectives developed to improve the health of Americans by the year 2011, including the 10 leading health indicators.

The Maternal, Child and Adolescent Health (MCAH) Program of the California Department of Public Health: This group implements comprehensive interventions that address up-stream multiple determinants of obesity via the California MCAH Local Health Jurisdictions (LHJ).

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) DHHS:

CDC is recognized as the

lead Federal agency for protecting the health and safety of Americans, and also provides information about obesity prevention initiatives called Healthy Youth. Healthy Youth is a webbased resource providing statistical information about rates of obesity among school-age

COMPREHENSIVE SYSTEMS THINKING children, school programs, and activities to encourage healthy eating and physical activity, policy guidance, and research-based strategies. In February 2010, President Barack Obama established the Task Force on Childhood Obesity to develop an interagency plan to address and solve the Nations childhood obesity problem within a generation. The fast force will make recommendations on how to achieve the following: ensuring access to healthy, affordable food, increasing physical activity in schools and communities, providing healthier food in school, and empowering parents with information and tools to make good choices for themselves and their families. A national public awareness effort, including a comprehensive fitness agenda, will be led by First Lady Michelle Obama. What other stakeholder groups involvement will be critical for your events success? The prevention and treatment of childhood obesity in the United States is a pressing concern of

stakeholders in many sectors and disciplines across the country, including families, public health, health care, health research, government, schools, community groups, urban planning, the media, as well as others. Addressing this national health problem requires accurate, reliable, and relevant information to assist in shaping prevention and treatment programs and policies.
Centers for Disease Control and Preventions (CDC) Division of Partnerships and Strategic Alliances. ASTHO and NIHCM. ASTHO is the national non-profit organization representing the state and territorial public health agencies of the United States, the U.S. Territories, and the District of Columbia. ASTHOs members, the chief health officials of these jurisdictions, are dedicated to formulating and influencing sound public health policy and assuring excellence in state-based public health practice. NIHCM Foundation is a non-profit organization whose mission is to promote improvement in health care access, management and quality, and to foster dialogue and cooperation between the private and public sectors to find creative and workable solutions to American health system problems.

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The U.S. Surgeon General issued The Surgeon General's Vision for a Healthy and Fit Nation (2010), by the Office of the Surgeon General, Public Health Service, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services which provides statistics about obesity among children.

How will you structure the fundraising? Among the most ambitious efforts to improve financing and make resources go further are those that reshape the way dollars already in the system are spent. This is especially true of those funds that benefit families served by several agencies and programs. Vulnerable families and those at highest risk typically have multiple needs and receive services from more than one agency or program. Efforts to make better use of existing resources frequently focus on coordinating and streamlining these services to reduce administrative costs; shifting funding from more restrictive and costly programs to less restrictive and less costly, community- based services; and improving efficiency by making better use of non-money resources and creating greater economies of scale.

A wide variety of federal funding streams are available to support healthy lifestyles for children, including obesity prevention. Typically these funds are narrowly focused on a target population or an approach to dealing with one aspect of a multifaceted problem. Entrepreneurial program leaders can educate themselves about the various types of federal funding streams that might support obesity prevention efforts and then work with the relevant decision makers to access these funds.

Strategies to create more flexible funding can be key to developing comprehensive community support systems and paying for an array of needed services when one funding stream cannot do the job alone. The common objective of these strategies is to enable community leaders to provide an array of coordinated, community-based supports and services.

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Another important category of financing strategies that can extend the reach of public sector funding is the creation of public-private partnerships. Partnerships between government, community nonprofit organizations, charitable foundations, corporations, the faith community, and others provide valuable avenues for broadening the base of financial support for community programs and services as well as providing new leadership for these initiatives. Finally, dedicated revenue sources that raise and/or direct public funds for specific purposes are

an important category of strategies to generate funding for services that improve the health of families and children. These funds can be generated privately at the program level through fundraising, fees, and unrelated business income. Alternately, they can be generated publicly by state and local governments through the creation of special taxing districts, special tax levies, guaranteed expenditure minimums, trust funds, and fees or other narrowly based taxes. While federal funding represents only a piece of the funding puzzle, the amount of funding available and its scope indicate that policymakers see obesity prevention as a high priority. In 2002, President Bush, in conjunction with the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), launched the HealthierUS32 Initiative with the goal of helping people understand and use federal resources to promote health and prevent obesity with simple and modest improvements in physical activity, nutrition, and behavior. Due in part to this initiative, several agencies within DHHS, the Departments of Agriculture and Education, and other federal agencies have made obesity prevention a funding priority. Many of these efforts target children.

What similar events have been successfully planned or currently held in another location? While there are many events that have taken place over the years, the following four events demonstrate enough different in attendance, distance, price and funds raised to provide an overview of biking charity events.

COMPREHENSIVE SYSTEMS THINKING A longer list, aggregated into a single website, is available here: http://www.charitybicycleride.com/charity_bike_events.htm

The following four events have occurred in the last 6 months:

City Phoenix, AZ Hickory, NC Cinci, OH Aspen, CO

Held 10/10 10/10 9/10 9/10

Charity Police Cancer Parkinsons Cancer

Attend 400 700 1000 350

Distance 62 mi 10-52 mi 20-100k 20, 50 mi

Price 25 10-30 0-80 50-85

Raised $10,000 112,000 200,000 160,000

Information to support this chart (and on these rides) can be found online: http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2010/10/28/20101028phoenix-officer-stenholmfundraiser-100-club.html http://www.brettsride.org/about/index.html http://sunflowerrev.kintera.org/faf/home/default.asp?ievent=337546&lis=1&kntae337546 =1B2F2BD4648B4590AEF8E5CE1CA20B5A http://www.wapiyapiclassic.com/index.html

How will you market the event? In todays media-saturated world, the effective use of fundraising platforms like blackbaud (used by the Sunflower Revolution, held in Ohio) found online at http://www.blackbaud.com/ are critical.

COMPREHENSIVE SYSTEMS THINKING Additionally the use of Facebook, like Bretts challenge (in Hickory, NC), Facebook pages, fans, and like button all help promote an event. Particularly useful in this approach is the user-

generated content that drives word of mouth marketing so that promotion isnt only managed by event organizers. In the case where celebrities are involved, the effective use of Twitter is another way to get the message out. In the case of the wapiyapi fundraiser, with Lance Armstrong, twitter was used to promote the event to his 2.6 million followers. Are you going to try and get celebrity or business spokespeople? While one event listed above used celebrities to promote the event, many of the events researched, and most of them listed above, were able to generate large attendance numbers without needing anyone special. Have you clearly identified the goals of the organization for which you are planning? Childhood obesity is a big deal. Beyond educating the public, one major goal must be to help kids and families get active, in an enjoyable way, for a weekend. Lastly, funds that are raised can be contributed to local schools that are consistently making changing to the food programs and food education in the schools. Quantitative goals are: Number in attendance: 200 and Donations raised: $10,000 One of the dynamics most seen in these events is that its not a single event, but instead two or three. By having a 100k-timed race, it brings racers from around the country to compete. This helps raise money and awareness of the event. In many cases, these events grew each year as racers talked it up to others and brought friends with them. At the same time, having a family route (much smaller) that isnt a race and is enjoyable helps families come out and participate.

COMPREHENSIVE SYSTEMS THINKING In many cases, the event is held over a weekend, with other events scheduled, like a street fair. This ensures that the local residents enjoy their time, as well as local retail because they have a place to showcase their products.

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In the case of the Sunflower Revolution, an educational component was involved and health and hospital professionals were engaged. This helps educate the public on childhood obesity.