In Your Community - Overview

Creating Healthy Communities in Massachusetts

Creating healthier communities is about increasing opportunities for people to eat better and move more in the places they live, learn, work and play. Many things help to make a community healthy, which can include:

• stores and farmers markets selling healthy foods
• parks, playgrounds and other safe places to be active outside
• walkable and bikeable streets and paths
• public transportation

To create healthier communities across the state, we're working with local cities and towns to create practices, policies and regulations that support nutrition and physical activity.

Mass in Motion Municipal Wellness & Leadership Program

Mass in Motion’s Municipal Wellness and Leadership Program is made up of 33 programs representing 52 cities and towns from around the Commonwealth that are working to make the healthy choice the easy choice. As part of the Mass in Motion program, communities receive technical assistance and grant funding to work with city/town departments, community-based organizations, health and human service agencies, schools, retailers, and workplaces to create conditions that increase opportunities for residents to eat better and move.

The Municipal Wellness and Leadership program is funded by the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and a variety of Massachusetts based private health foundations and organizations.

See if your city or town is on the list of Mass in Motion communities, and read some of their stories from the field.

Whether your community is an official partner of Mass in Motion or not, we encourage you to use the resources in this section to help make healthy changes in your city or town.