“Change the environment, do not try to change the person.”
Buckminister Fuller, architect, engineer, mathematician, poet and cosmologist.

Click Here to visit the CX³ Pilot Website!

Thank you for agreeing to be a CX³ rater!

You are participating in a critical phase for creating CX³. CX³ is a framework for local action that relies on assessing community indicators and assets by local groups and people to identify needs, develop strategies for action, and measure progress over time. A wide spectrum of indicators and assets has been compiled. As a rater, your role is to review and rate them. By doing so, you will be part of a process that narrows the large number of possible choices to the most promising indicators and assets – those that are impactful, important, and feasible.

To learn more about CX³ click here for answers to questions. Remember that you’ll be looking at indicators and assets from the community level; CX³ does not assess individuals (e.g. % of people in a community who are overweight). A couple of other notes to get yourself in the CX³ rating mindset:

• The community indicators are designed to look at a community’s environments and norms. For example, is the community designed to promote walking, is fresh food accessible in the neighborhood, does the school prohibit fast food on its campus, etc. Typically, these are indicators that can ultimately be turned into some type of written policy (voluntary or legislated, zoning, regulation, formalized practice).
  
• Only indicators that are within a community’s control are included. For example, the amount of food advertising on TV is not included because TV advertising is regulated by the Federal Trade Commission.
  
• The indicators are grouped into community “environments” that are based on the Social-Ecological Model and modeled after the Prevention Institute and Strategic Alliance’s ENACT (Environmental Nutrition and Activity Strategies Tool) website: Neighborhood, Preschools and Childcare, Schools, After-School Programs, Worksites, and Government.
  
• The indicators have come from many sources: studies from peer reviewed literature, reports from expert groups such as the Institute of Medicine, policy statements from voluntary organizations, recommendations from expert associations, brainstorming sessions with different groups, and so on (see CX³ answers to questions for more information).
  
• CX³ indicators can be thought of as intermediate outcomes that precede individual behavioral changes.
  
• The community assets look at a community’s “readiness” for addressing policy and environmental change. They represent factors that promote and sustain obesity prevention efforts in the community by facilitating nutrition, physical activity and obesity prevention work.

Many of you specialize in nutrition or food security or physical activity. For rating purposes only, the indicators cover two topics of specialization--Nutrition, including Food Security, and Physical Activity, including Community Design. The topics are then further divided into six community environments. You can focus on the topic(s) and environments of your choice. However, we ask that everyone rate the community assets.

Please submit your ratings no later than Monday, July 11th. We will share the results with you after they are compiled. Thank you all for your participation!