About Us

Mapping our Voices for Equality (MOVE) is a grassroots strategy using new media tools to promote health equity in King County. MOVE features on-going changes that improve healthy eating and physical activity and create tobacco-free environments in King County.  This website showcases over seventy-five multilingual digital stories produced by community members and a local map that illustrates policies that are improving health.

MOVE Goals:

   1. To visually demonstrate inequities and positive changes in King County related to obesity, diabetes, and tobacco.
   2. To highlight local Communities Putting Prevention to Work (CPPW) efforts to improve health through policy, systems and environmental changes.
   3. To foster local partnerships among CPPW grantees and partners to map data, share media and resources, and take collective action.

MOVE partners use the map and embedded media to promote healthy equity with two distinct audiences:

   1. Peer education workshops to mobilize residents in neighborhoods disproportionately impacted by chronic health issues.
   2. Public forums for decision makers. Take a look at the series of launch events with elected officials in fall of 2011.

Why a media map?

Maps are a particularly effective tool for visually "seeing" the disproportionate access to healthy food, physical activity, and tobacco prevention along income and color lines in King County. Community members are using a participatory mapping process to identify, analyze, and act upon health issues while building local capacity in multimedia technology. The MOVE website is multilingual, engaging diverse audiences across sectors through both quantitative data and narrative testimonials.In addition to embedded community media, users can  search for places that have increased access to healthy eating, active living, and tobacco prevention (i.e. healthy corner stores, tobacco free housing, etc.)

The infrastructure of the MOVE map is designed to make it simple for allies to add other data fields and to use the map for future policy work.

If you have questions about MOVE, please get in touch. We'd love to hear from you!