Thread by @AustinStrassle

Good morning folks. There's a Health Commission meeting today from 10:00-11:30am. Peep the agenda below. Lots of things to discuss including state & federal legislative priorities. A UNI set-aside proposal. Vaping. CHIP updates & more. Come check us out if able! #kcmo #healthykc

Happy Monday, good folks. After enjoying the weekend, I am back to share with the Timeline the happenings of the last Health Commission meeting that occurred on Friday, Oct. 9. Follow along and as always feel free to ask any questions.

The Commission went into closed session to vote on Health Levy Innovation Funding recommendations. I had to leave/recuse myself from this discussion since I work for one of the applicants. @KCMOHealthDept can provide more info on the outcome of those decisions.

New Business - Legislative Priorities

Council annually adopts State and Federal legislative priorities. Commission provides recommendations as well related to health in the community. @EmShankland, who chairs Health Policy & Advocacy, presented these recs. to the Commissioners.

The legislative priorities touch on many areas that impact health - housing, education, economic development, safety, birth equity, and others. A big push this year was to center anti-racism throughout all the priorities.

There is still work being done on these priorities and it was asked that Health Policy & Advocacy continue to finalize recommendations before they need to be presented to Council later this month.

New Business - Vaping Legislation

The American Heart Association is working to pass legislation to ban the sale of ALL flavored tobacco & e-cigarette products in Kansas City. The AHA provided a presentation on why they are pursuing this legislation in KC.

Some notable facts about smoking & e-cigarettes:

1997 - 1 in 4 teens smoked cigarettes (bad!)
2018 - 1 in 20 teens smoked cigarettes (good!)
2019 - 1 in 4 teens vaped/used e-cigarettes (bad!)

Tobacco companies utilize advertising and other tactics to draw in new customers. These are frequently targeted towards teen. I've included some ads from the e-cigarette maker Juul for reference.

In order to avoid over policing of minority communities, any penalties would be levied against the store owner - so not the salesperson or anyone in possession. And enforcement would be through inspection, not policing.

It was asked that Commission support this effort to ban the sale of flavored tobacco and e-cigarette products. This passed unanimously amongst the Commission.

Expect to see this to be introduced later this month/early November and to coincide with a similar effort in KCK.

We returned to old business - UNI Letter of Support

Last month we heard a presentation from Urban Neighborhood Initiative's proposed set-aside policy. This would require incentivized developments to include a certain percentage of affordable housing.

There was limited discussion and the Commission voted unanimously to sign onto a letter supporting UNI's proposed policy change.

Additional Business - CHIP Update

The Community Health Improvement Plan continues toward finalization. The CHIP Committee is working on a draft for the Commission to review by the end of year.

Health Dept. staff provided a brief update on communication that had been occurring with Grandmothers Against Gun Violence and an effort they are working on related to health risk warnings and the potential risk of firearms when improperly used.

COVID - Please wear a mask and please continue to follow all the recommended guidelines from health professionals. I would love to go out and do my normal fall activities but that's not possible right now.

So please be careful. Also, check this link for more COVID info: …-response-in-kcmo-kcmo.hub.arcgis.com

It was a good meeting and there was lots of good discussion related to ongoing work being done in the community. Check back next month and I'll be providing another update on the work Health Commission is doing.

@threadreaderapp, please unroll. Thank you all!