Wisconsin State Comprehensive Planning Requirements are Associated with Better Local Planning for Healthy Eating and Active Living: A Multilevel Policy Content Analysis

Abstract

Purpose To determine whether the specificity of mandates in Wisconsin’s state comprehensive planning statute is associated with the inclusion and actionability of healthy eating and active living items in local comprehensive plans. Design Retrospective, cross-sectional, multilevel policy content analysis. Setting Wisconsin. Sample 93 local comprehensive plans, stratified by urbanicity and regional planning commission area. Measures Local comprehensive plans were scored using the Healthy Living and Active Design Scorecard for Comprehensive Plans. Wisconsin’s state comprehensive planning statute was evaluated for general or specific mandates for each item in the Scorecard. Analysis Difference in weighted percentage of municipalities scoring for items not mandated, mandated with general language, and mandated with specific language; one-sided Welch difference of means tests. Results Mandating an item with general language is associated with a 33.6 percentage point higher inclusion rate in local plans and mandating an item with specific language is associated with a 50.2 percentage point higher inclusion rate in local plans. All differences are statistically significant at the 0.05 confidence level. Conclusion Healthy eating and active living items that are mandated by state statute are more likely to be included in local comprehensive plans than items that are not mandated. Mandated items are also more likely to be included in local comprehensive plans in an actionable manner, which may make them more likely to be implemented.