The Healthy Community Movement

Middle school student during a blind-folded taste testing

Communities across the nation are using a variety of change models and planning processes to work together to achieve their vision of improved health. The underlying notion of the "healthy community movement" is that well-informed people, working together in an effective process, can make a profound difference in the health and quality of people's lives. Healthy community coalitions typically serve the following functions in their communities:

• Convening a community forum
• Building a partnership
• Developing community structure
• Leadership development
• Community health and quality of life assessment
• Community-wide planning
• Community action for health and quality of life
• Providing data-based information to policy makers
• Monitoring and evaluation

Healthy Community Principles

From Healthy People in Healthy Communities: A Dialogue Guide, by Tyler Norris and Linde Howell.

A broad definition of "health." Health is not the absence of disease. Health is defined broadly to include the full range of quality of life issues. It recognizes that most of what creates health is lifestyle- and behavior-related. Other major factors are genetic endowment and the socio-economic, cultural and physical environment. Health is a by-product of a wide array of choices and factors - not simply the result of a medical care intervention.

A broad definition of "community." By using as broad a definition as possible of what makes up a community, individuals and partnerships can address their shared issues in the most fruitful way possible. Communities can be based on faith, perspective, land and professions, as well as being determined by geographic lines.

Shared vision from community values. A community's vision is the story of its desired future. To be powerful and inspiring, a community's vision should reflect the core values of its diverse members. A vision is not just a statement on the wall - it is a living expression of shared accountability to priorities.

Address quality of life for everyone. Healthy communities strive to ensure that the basic emotional, physical and spiritual needs of everyone in the community are attended to.

Diverse citizen participation and widespread community ownership. In healthy communities, all people take active and ongoing responsibility for themselves, their families, their property and their community. A leader's work is to find common ground among participants so that everyone is empowered to take direct action for health and influence community directions.

Focus on "system change." This is about changing the way people live and work together. It is about how community services are delivered, how information is shared, how local government operates, and how business is conducted. It's about resource allocation and decision-making, not just "nice" projects.

Build capacity using local assets and resources. This means starting from existing community strengths and successes and then investing in the enhancement of a community's "civic infrastructure." By developing an infrastructure that encourages health, fewer resources will need to be spent on "back end" services that attempt to fix the problems resulting from a weak infrastructure.

Benchmark and measure progress and outcomes. Healthy communities use performance measures and community indicators to help expand the flow of information and accountability to all citizens, as well as to reveal whether residents are heading toward or away from their stated goals. Timely, accurate information is vital to sustaining long-term community improvement.

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