[TRBHealth] Subcommittee Update

Hi--I hope this finds you well. This January’s TRB Annual Meeting was an exciting time for our subcommittee. A lot of activities are wrapping up, moving forward or just beginning. On top of all the activity underway we heard some exciting news. As part of the TRB Strategic realignment, http://www.trb.org/AboutTRB/TADStrategicAlignment.aspx, a new Group, Transportation Sustainability and Resilience is being set up. Under the Group are three sections; Society, Systems Resilience and Sustainability. In the Society section are eight committees including Health (AME70). Bill Anderson, TRB staff was at our subcommittee meeting and talked with us about the process of setting up a committee and getting things rolling. As the larger TRB realignment rolls out there is a lot of activity happening as committees are being formed, restructured, merged, retired, etc. For us we have a few things directly ahead. 1. Continue with our subcommittee activities maintaining our broad connections within and throughout TRB and the community. Bill echoed this noting the main purpose of committees in Group is to collaborate across the organization. For us, this means that we should continue to put the spotlight on different elements of health where it intersects with other committees. 2. More immediately, we need to craft a scope and mission for the new committee. Bill said it was due sometime in May. We have a good start since we have been developing and evolving the subcommittee’s scope over the last 10 years. It can be found on our website but here is the direct link https://sites.google.com/site/trbhealthandtransport/subcommittee-information. The scope of the new committee of course will be developed in coordination with the scopes of the other committees in the Social section as they come together. There was also a discussion about membership. First, the chair of the new committee has not been appointed. Bill noted that TRB decides committee chairs. Regarding membership, member selection is a responsibility of the committee working with TRB staff. A committee can have up to 36 members, eleven of which can be any combination of international, young or state DOT representatives. The last membership category discussed was that of a Friend. Friends work on committees hand in hand with the members and there is no limit to number of friends. As a subcommittee we were using our listserve as our friends list. To dive deeper into the rules for committees the TRB Leadership guide is the place to go. http://onlinepubs.trb.org/onlinepubs/dva/chair/TRBLeadershipGuide1-35.pdf. That was about the extent of the discussion for the new committee. To get things moving I will pull together a small group from our leadership team to begin the review of the scope. For now, if you get a chance, take a look at the subcommittee’s current scope listed above and feel free to comment either directly to me or to the listserve. Thanks -- Ed Christopher Transportation Planning Consultant 708-269-5237