New Yorkers are the proof: The environment that we live in has a direct influence on our health. In the Big Apple, where the streets are clogged with taxis and town cars, residents live longer on average than people living elsewhere in the U.S. because they walk more.

"New Yorkers live longer than other Americans because they're the only people in the U.S. who walk all the time," Ventura City Councilman Bill Fulton said Thursday during a conference on the effect of land-use planning on health. Fulton is president of Solimar Research Group, a Ventura-based urban-planning firm.

"How can you take this idea and how can you incorporate that into how we build our communities?"

That was the focus of Building Bridges: Integrating the Public's Health into Land Use Planning, which was hosted by the Ventura County Obesity Prevention Task Force's built environment/policy committee. The event brought school, city, land-use and health officials together to talk about improving health through land-use planning during a four-hour session at the Courtyard by Marriott in Oxnard.

The first step toward improving health through housing is to provide plenty of safe, decent affordable housing, said keynote speaker Lynn Jacobs, director of the state Department of Housing and Community Development. Jacobs, of Ventura, is president of Ventura Affordable Homes and a former member of the Ventura Planning Commission.

"When housing is safe, decent and affordable, families don't have to move they have additional funds to pay for health insurance and proper food," she said. "Great residential stability can reduce stress. Alleviating crowding leads to a reduction of stressors and infectious disease."

Housing could require creative solutions, she said, such as using surplus state land for housing projects or under-used school property for teacher housing. Low-wage workers in the agriculture, retail and tourism industries also need to be considered.

"What we need for housing to be healthy is to provide enough housing for all the people who live and work in Ventura County," she said.

Other connections between housing and health include making housing more walkable and convenient to amenities such as grocery stores, offices, public transportation stops or parks, Fulton said.

"Pedestrian and bicycle trails are used more when the trails actually go somewhere," he said, noting that it seemed obvious but doesn't always happen in practice.

"Making towns a place where physical activity is convenient and almost overlooked — that is the goal. The built environment should encourage you to walk and be active," he said.

Thursday's seminar was one of several obesity-related events being put on by the Task Force and its committees in an effort to advocate for a healthier Ventura County. The five committees are children's environment, ages 0 to five; children's environment, grades kindergarten through 12; built environment/policy; healthcare; and worksite wellness. Members of the task force and the committees include Ventura County Public Health officials as well as representatives from other healthcare groups, schools, social service agencies, businesses and more.

Speakers at the event, which included two featured speakers, question-and-answer sessions and a panel of transportation, parks, health and development experts, shared both concerns and solutions about health's links to housing and land-use planning.

For more information on the Obesity Prevention Task Force and its events, call Sharman Busch at 677-5235.