Mayor Fischer Receives National Health Leadership Award

Mayor Greg Fischer was presented a Health Leadership Award yesterday at the opening dinner of the US Conference of Mayors 86th annual meeting in Boston. The award was presented by CityHealth, an initiative of the de Beaumont Foundation and Kaiser Permanente, that regularly evaluates the nation’s 40 largest cities on the number and strength of their policies that help people live longer, better lives.

Louisville was one of only nine cities recognized for health leadership at the event.

In its annual health rankings released May 22, CityHealth awarded Louisville a bronze medal overall, meaning the city has a bronze, silver or gold medal in four of the nine CityHealth policies: affordable housing, alcohol sales control, complete streets, earned sick leave, food safety/restaurant grading, healthy food procurement, high-quality universal pre-kindergarten, smoke-free indoor air, and having a minimum legal age of 21 for purchase of tobacco products.

Louisville is one of only five cities nationwide that increased its overall medal status in 2018.

Over the past year Louisville strengthened its smoke-free indoor air ordinance by prohibiting the smoking or vaping electronic cigarettes as well as hookah. The city was also recognized for instituting a healthy vending policy, as well as a restaurant grading system that requires food establishments to post their food inspection grade where customers can see it.

“This award affirms the work my administration has been focused on since day 1: that we become a healthier city,” Mayor Fischer said. “We know that policy has a tremendous impact on how healthy the people of our city can be. That’s why we adopted a health in all policies approach to all that we do. It’s great to see our efforts having positive results, and we will continue working toward that overall goal of creating a culture of health.”