About $600,000 in grants were awarded this week by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) to 12 local partnerships aimed at reducing tobacco use and exposure as well as other public-health problems.

RWJF has awarded $12 million over the years under the Tobacco Policy Change project. The latest round of grants represents an evolution of foundation grantmaking to include non tobacco-related initiatives, such as providing access to healthy food, increasing physical activity, and reducing the number of uninsured individuals in at-risk populations.

Grantees include projects in Alabama to get statewide smoke-free legislation passed and reducing the number of tobacco retailers in New Orleans' Lower 9th Ward.

"The Tobacco Policy Change Program has pioneered effective strategies for improving the public's health," said Risa Lavizzo-Mourey, M.D., M.B.A., RWJF's president and CEO. "We expect that applying those strategies to other pressing public-health problems, such as childhood obesity and the uninsured, will help people live longer and healthier lives."