Observations in Health 

Maren Stewart, president and CEO of LiveWell Colorado, urges constituents to get involved in changing policy by mailing or e-mailing their elected officials.

Health Advocacy Can Start with ‘Baby Steps’

By Sandy Graham
Photograph by Phil Mumford 

EDITOR'S NOTE: Maren Stewart is LiveWell Colorado’s first president and CEO. Previously, Stewart was vice president of External Affairs at The Children’s Hospital, where, among her responsibilities, she was in charge of advocacy and public policy. LiveWell Colorado has awarded grants to Colorado communities working on healthy eating and active living strategies since 2006, with support from the Colorado Health Foundation, but it became an independent nonprofit organization last year.

Getting involved in shaping health policy doesn’t come naturally to most people, says Maren Stewart, president and CEO of LiveWell Colorado.

“I don’t think most people – in Colorado or elsewhere – understand or believe that they can make a difference,” says Stewart, whose career has spanned lobbying as well as overseeing advocacy efforts of The Children’s Hospital. “People are busy – they don’t see getting involved in shaping health policy as their right or responsibility.”

Yet, health policy “directly impacts people in a very meaningful and tangible way,” she notes. Stewart believes that sharing examples of successful advocacy efforts can open people’s eyes to the impact they can have, individually or collectively, in this important arena. “

The best way to engage people in advocacy is to share success stories,” Stewart says. “Sometimes they’re baby steps, but they are steps nonetheless.” 

The work of LiveWell Colorado, which is committed to reducing obesity, demonstrates that bringing people together can have an impact.

During the past few years, LiveWell Colorado communities have advocated for local policies that support healthy eating and active living. Influencing master plans to adopt strong pedestrian strategies, encouraging walking and working with school districts to serve healthy, locally grown food to students are just a few of the strategies these communities have encouraged. Advocates’ input has helped city councils, town-zoning boards and other local officials to think about what can be done to help people live healthier, more active lives. In many cases, officials have found that simple changes can be made to government policy that have big impacts on the community’s health. 

Nationally, Stewart notes, individuals or groups motivated by personal experiences have propelled many programs through Congress or federal agencies. For example, the family of Ryan White, an Indiana boy who died of AIDS, helped advocate for the Ryan White Act shortly after his 1990 death. The bill resulted in the nation’s largest network of assistance programs for people living with HIV/AIDS. And parents of several children who were abducted and murdered helped advocate at the Federal Communications Commission for the nationwide AMBER Alert system, named for a Texas child taken and killed in 1996. 

In the healthy living arena, Deb Hubsmith helped create a pilot program in Marin County, Calif., to encourage youngsters to bike and walk to school. The effort grew into the Safe Routes to School National Partnership. The partnership, with Hubsmith as its director, encourages communities to build safe sidewalks and other infrastructure and educates people about the benefits of walking or biking to school. “

These are very powerful efforts and they often started with one person,” Stewart says.

Once the desire to influence policy is sparked, people need an easy route to participate in the process. Otherwise, enthusiasm wanes.

“It’s one thing to say, ‘You should get involved in health care reform,’” Stewart says. “It’s another to say, ‘Here are the names and numbers of your elected officials and here are some key messages to share with them.’ You simply have to make it as easy as possible.”

That is LiveWell Colorado’s strategy in its new grass-roots advocacy network, which launches this month. 

The organization is recruiting Coloradans statewide to participate in advocacy efforts through the network. LiveWell Colorado will alert advocates in the database whenever an important issue related to healthy eating and active living is under consideration by elected officials, at the state or national levels.

Again, to make it as easy as possible for busy people to participate, LiveWell Colorado will provide officials’ contact information, background on the issues and sample “scripts” advocates can tailor to send to elected officials. 

“We know this type of advocacy can be very powerful,” Stewart says. “We know elected officials tend to listen more to their constituents.”

LiveWell Colorado is focusing research efforts in two primary policy areas: access to healthy food and worksite wellness. In both areas, the organization is gathering examples of what has and hasn’t worked in Colorado, and mapping areas where there are gaps in healthy food availability or workplace wellness programs. From this research, blueprints will be created to guide its policy initiatives in both arenas.

“This process is very collaborative,” Stewart says. “We are engaging our partners and stakeholders in order to garner significant input. Ultimately, these blueprints won’t be LiveWell Colorado’s documents. We’re hoping they will be seen and embraced as the entire state’s vision for moving ahead in worksite wellness and food access policy.” 

LiveWell Colorado will work closely with organizations that have similar goals, avoiding duplicative efforts while filling in gaps where healthy living efforts are needed.

To Stewart, her job at LiveWell Colorado is about empowering people. While there are many opportunities for people to join in the fight against obesity, the public policy arena may hold the greatest potential because one change can affect hundreds or thousands of people.  

Public policy “is something that impacts me and that I, in turn, can impact. I think everyone has a responsibility to be involved,” Stewart says.