256233 Developing WeTHRIVE! Communities who thrive on Policy, System and Environmental Assessment, Planning and Implementation

Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Susan A. Schaefer, MEd , Health Promotion and Education, Hamilton County Public Health, Cincinnati, OH
Catherine Ramstetter, MS, PhD , Health Promotion and Education, Hamilton County Public Health, Cincinnati, OH
Tonya Key , Health Promotion and Education, Hamilton County Public Health, Cincinnati, OH
Stacy Wegley, MS , Health Promotion and Education, Hamilton County Public Health, Cincinnati, OH
Hamilton County Public Health (HCPH) partnered with municipalities within their jurisdiction to expand the work of a CDC-funded grant, Communities Putting Prevention to Work. For this project, forty-nine cities, townships and villages within Hamilton County were eligible to receive a WeTHRIVE! Communty mini-grant to develop policy and environmental changes that will promote or sustain healthy eating and physical activity initiatives. HCPH created and disseminated a request for proposals and developed a submission and application review process. Thirteen communities were selected. HCPH team included health educators and community outreach coordinators. Each community's team included residents, administrators, employees and elected officials. Selected applicants received $24,000, group training, one-on-one technical assistance and participated in bi-weekly calls over a seven month time period. All communities completed the Community-at-Large Sector of the CHANGE Tool; completed physical activity shared-use assessments, resulting in 13 formal Shared-Use Agreements, and the potential for future agreements; adopted official Wellness Resolutions; created and publicized a community-driven Action Plan; connected Action Plan to their community's Master/Strategic Plans and implemented policy, systems and environmental change strategies to address healthy eating and physical activity in their community. HCPH developed a model for building community infrastructure to begin to implement policy, system and the environmental changes to impact health. Communities began to recognize these changes are integral to their community members' ability to engage in healthy behaviors or participate in health-promoting programs and services. Communities were able to make connections within their jurisdiction and with other communities to maximize resources and enhance their health-promoting capacity.

Learning Areas:
Administration, management, leadership
Advocacy for health and health education
Implementation of health education strategies, interventions and programs
Planning of health education strategies, interventions, and programs
Public health or related education
Public health or related public policy

Learning Objectives:
Describe one approach for facilitating community-based assessment of policy and environments which support physical activity and healthy eating and promote health and wellness for all community members; Identify strategies to create physical environments which support physical activity and healthy eating and promote health and wellness for all community members; Describe policies which support physical activity and healthy eating and promote health and wellness for all community members;

Keywords: Community-Based Public Health, Community Health Assessment

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: For the past two years I have served as Outreach Coordinator for Hamilton County Public Health. In this role, I worked directly with all of the communities featured in this poster, assisted with the development of the overall program and led the communities in the adoption shared use agreements. I have a Bachelor of Science in Communication and extensive experience in community building, project and campaign management, and volunteer development.
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.