Toward A Healthy Community

Abstract: A description of a 3-day health fair (HEalth Works '79) sponsored by the Department of Health and Human Services includes reactions and comments from participants and observers regarding the success of the fair. The fair was designed to increase awareness and understanding of health promotion among health professionals and the public, to expand the concept of the health fair beyond the traditional emphasis on health screening, to attract media attention to the health promotion and disease prevention, and to encourage individuals to focus on health rather than illness. The fair was intended as a prototype for communities planning similar events. An appendix lists exhibits present at HEalth Works '79. (ds).

Abstract: Guidelines for developing health promotion activities in the community are presented through discussion of a healthy community system model. Health promotion events such as marathons, health fairs, and media campaigns can provide the stimulus, basic information, and general direction that individuals need to make appropriate changes in health habits. Appendices include questionnaires to assess health practices and community services currently available for those interested in collecting health-related data. (ds).

"Whether we know it or not, whether we want to be or not, we are members of one another." Since 1960, Wendell Berry (b. 1934) has produced one of the most substantial and consistently thematic bodies of work of any modern American writer. In more than fifty books in various genres-novels, short stories, poems, and essays-he has celebrated a life lived in close communion with neighbors and the earth and has addressed many of our most urgent cultural maladies. His collections of essays urge us to think and act responsibly as members of a community-both human and natural. Volumes of his poems seek to wed us to nature and realign our vision with its mysteries. His growing Port William cycle of novels offers us a fictional model for understanding, for compassion, and for living in constant regard for others. Conversations with Wendell Berry gathers for the first time interviews with the writer, ranging from 1973 to 2006, including one never before published. For readers acquainted with Berry's work, this volume offers insights available nowhere else. It reveals succinctly the main currents of his life's work. What emerges is a citizen-writer profoundly affected by cultural crises at home and in the world. Morris Allen Grubbs directs the Preparing Future Faculty Program in the graduate school at University of Kentucky, where he was a student of Berry's. He is editor of Home and Beyond: An Anthology of Kentucky Short Stories. Photograph-Wendell Berry by Pam Spaulding, courtesy CJF

In the United States, some populations suffer from far greater disparities in health than others. Those disparities are caused not only by fundamental differences in health status across segments of the population, but also because of inequities in factors that impact health status, so-called determinants of health. Only part of an individual's health status depends on his or her behavior and choice; community-wide problems like poverty, unemployment, poor education, inadequate housing, poor public transportation, interpersonal violence, and decaying neighborhoods also contribute to health inequities, as well as the historic and ongoing interplay of structures, policies, and norms that shape lives. When these factors are not optimal in a community, it does not mean they are intractable: such inequities can be mitigated by social policies that can shape health in powerful ways. Communities in Action: Pathways to Health Equity seeks to delineate the causes of and the solutions to health inequities in the United States. This report focuses on what communities can do to promote health equity, what actions are needed by the many and varied stakeholders that are part of communities or support them, as well as the root causes and structural barriers that need to be overcome.

The anthrax incidents following the 9/11 terrorist attacks put the spotlight on the nation's public health agencies, placing it under an unprecedented scrutiny that added new dimensions to the complex issues considered in this report. The Future of the Public's Health in the 21st Century reaffirms the vision of Healthy People 2010, and outlines a systems approach to assuring the nation's health in practice, research, and policy. This approach focuses on joining the unique resources and perspectives of diverse sectors and entities and challenges these groups to work in a concerted, strategic way to promote and protect the public's health. Focusing on diverse partnerships as the framework for public health, the book discusses: The need for a shift from an individual to a population-based approach in practice, research, policy, and community engagement. The status of the governmental public health infrastructure and what needs to be improved, including its interface with the health care delivery system. The roles nongovernment actors, such as academia, business, local communities and the media can play in creating a healthy nation. Providing an accessible analysis, this book will be important to public health policy-makers and practitioners, business and community leaders, health advocates, educators and journalists.

A call to reconnect the fields of urban planning and public health that offers a new decision-making framework for healthy city planning.

How do communities protect and improve the health of their populations? Health care is part of the answer but so are environmental protections, social and educational services, adequate nutrition, and a host of other activities. With concern over funding constraints, making sure such activities are efficient and effective is becoming a high priority. Improving Health in the Community explains how population-based performance monitoring programs can help communities point their efforts in the right direction. Within a broad definition of community health, the committee addresses factors surrounding the implementation of performance monitoring and explores the "why" and "how to" of establishing mechanisms to monitor the performance of those who can influence community health. The book offers a policy framework, applies a multidimensional model of the determinants of health, and provides sets of prototype performance indicators for specific health issues. Improving Health in the Community presents an attainable vision of a process that can achieve community-wide health benefits.

Promoting Health at the Community Level is the first book to provide a systematic examination of community-based health promotion. Edited by Doug Easterling, Kaia Gallagher, and Dora Lodwick, this innovative text uses seven case studies to evaluate community-driven health promotion and present promising strategies for initiating and sustaining community-based efforts. Individual chapters describe real-world, multi-site health initiatives and summarize their evaluation outcomes. Offering unique lessons for community-based coalitions and supportive organizations, Promoting Health at the Community Level will also inspire academics and students to further explore this innovative approach to health promotion and disease prevention.