Among the nation’s 40 most populous cities, San Antonio was found lacking when it comes to healthy community policies, according to a national ranking project.

CityHealth, a project of the de Beaumont Foundation, identified nine evidence-based and “politically achievable” policies that could be implemented in each of the 40 largest cities to improve health and strengthen communities. San Antonio was recognized Wednesday for having three of the nine policies. This is the first year CityHealth performed its assessment and issued gold, silver and bronze medal distinctions.

The city received a “gold medal” from CityHealth for banning smoking indoors and in some outdoor areas, a “silver medal” for policies promoting safe streets for drivers, pedestrians, bicyclists and buses, and a “bronze medal” for universal, high-quality prekindergarten.

“We have been working for years to make San Antonio one of the best cities in America where every resident can live, work and play in a healthy, safe and well-connected neighborhood,” said Mayor Ivy Taylor. “These medals highlight some of the progress we’ve made, like creating environments that are smoke-free, but there is still a lot of work to do.”

Taylor highlighted the Vision Zero project, the goal of which is to have zero fatalities on roadways, initiated by District 5 City Councilwoman Shirley Gonzales.

San Antonio was one of 21 cities that failed to receive an overall medal, or individual medals for the remaining six policies, which would require all businesses in the city to provide paid sick days, affordable housing in inclusive neighborhoods, a smoking age of 21, access to healthy and affordable food, control over how many stores sell alcohol in a given area, and mandatory restaurant inspection ratings.

Sarah Baray, president of Pre-K 4 SA, the local preschool program mostly subsidized by sales taxes, said San Antonio has made high-quality early childhood education a priority.

“Our approach is innovative in its design, which focuses on both quality and sustainibility,” she said.

New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Boston and Washington, D.C., received overall gold medals. The only Texas city to receive an overall medal was Houston, with a bronze.

“We’re not simply putting out a rating of San Antonio and other cities to show their progress or lack of progress, but we really want this to be the beginning of a dialogue for how we can help them identify policies that work for the city,” said Edward Hunter, president and CEO of the de Beaumont Foundation.

The foundation, a private nonprofit based in Bethesda, Maryland, near Washington, seeks to “strengthen and transform public health in the United States by improving the effectiveness and capacity of local and state health departments,” according to its website.

CityHealth will spend the next three years monitoring policy changes and working with local groups to implement the recommendations, after which they will re-evaluate the 40 cities.

“Our goal is to get every city to be a gold-medal city,” Hunter said.

Staff Writer Silvia Foster-Frau contributed to this report.

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