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LAUNCHING A HEALTHY COMMUNITIES PROJECT
What is a Healthy Community?
What are healthy communities? Are they all the same? Are they similar in size? Are their populations homogeneous? Do they have the same health, education, governance, transportation, safety, environmental and quality of life issues? The answer is a resounding "no".
Healthy Communities are unique, but they have common elements that allow us to consider them collectively. Healthy Communities have a vision of future well being for the total community, and and employ a process that helps them achieve their goals. Communities can be concerned with employment and jobs, safety and security, education, children and families, housing or environmental pollution as their prime concern. No matter what the primary focus is, the complex web of relationships to improve the quality of life in communities and cities, are our concerns. A Healthy community then, is not simply an outcome, but a process that accommodates changing conditions and promotes improvement in the quality of life of its citizens.
A key element of the Healthy Communities concept is the use of a collaborative problem-solving process that allows a broad spectrum of community stakeholders to create a vision of of well being and implement a plan to turn its vision into reality. The process of working toward more competent and healthier communities must bring together a group that includes citizens and representatives from the private public, and nonprofit sectors. Each participant has a stake in improving the community's governance and programs, using all the assets and resources that communities have available. The group will need to be diverse, but all must have a commitment to collaboration as a mechanism for creating a better community for all.
Using collaborative approaches helps communities improve their education, housing, job, transportation, environment, health and quality of life in a manner that benefits all segments of the society. Working toward a healthier community will allow counties, cities, towns, neighborhoods, and regions to:
- Improve conditions, such as housing, education, recreation and the physical environment, that have a direct impact on individuals and community well being
- Attract and include different individuals, groups and professions to the process of improving the community;
- Reduce disparities in education, health, and economic opportunity among its citizens;
- Improve the quality of life for all;
- Put health high on the political agenda of communities;
- Attract and include different groups and professions to the process of improving the quality of life;
- Help establish new partnerships in the community;
- Build the community's capacity to address complex problems;
- Improve public policies and services that affect the community.
The term "community" is another key element in the Healthy Community building process. In the U.S., the focal point for local problem solving is not always city government. Further, city government is seen by some as exclusive and tending to rule out the consideration of counties, rural areas, or metropolitan areas that include central cities and suburbs. Experience shows that a community is defined in different ways in different places. In some cases, a community may be a city and other cases a metropolitan or rural region.In other areas, a community might be a large neighborhood. In New York City for example, people don't think of themselves as being from the city as much as they think of themselves as being from a borough, or even a neighborhood which is part of a borough. In some cases, the point for action would be smaller than a city. In rural areas with small towns, decision makers may choose to work from a sub-state regional perspective.
Communities must select which geographic definition is appropriate for addressing the broad issue of health. It may also be that for some components of a community's plan, different geographic descriptions will be the focal point for action. The process, however, must include a representative group of stakeholders from the community that is defined for a particular issue. Building a healthier community does not have a specified outcome, but it creates an environment that allows the community to thrive and work toward a higher quality of life. The creation of such an environment will require actions at all levels, from changes in public policies to changes in service delivery patterns to meet specific needs. Healthy communities allow their citizens to grow and to be healthy.
To view one of three distinct descriptive lists describing characteristics of Healthy Cities/Communities click on anyone of the following:
A Healthy City/Community is one that is continually creating and improving those physical and social environments and expanding those community resources which enable people to mutually support each other in performing all the functions of life and in developing to their maximum potential. The challenge that we face in striving to create Healthy Communities is twofold: can we find some broadly agreed upon dimensions that will describe a Healthy City/Community and even more importantly, can we suggest processes that will enhance a city's health, and thus the health of its people (Len Duhl, "The Social Entrepreneurship of Change, page 98). Consequently, each community's process to become a Healthy Community is unique and is impacted by the particular character of the community, the nature of the project, the resources available within the community, and the participants in the process. The following tutorial contains some general steps that may assist you and your community in the formation of a Healthy Communities/Cities project.
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