Partners for a Healthier Community

December 2007 January 2008 Issue
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Healthy living a community affair for residents of Fall River, Mass. by Kim Krisberg In terms of the leading indicators of good health, the coastal town of Fall River, Mass., isn’t doing so well. Collectively, the people of Fall River have higher rates of smoking, obesity and heart disease than their Massachusetts neighbors — but with great obstacles also come great opportunities. That is the hope driving the Healthy City Fall River initiative, which began more than four years ago with the help of more than 1,000 of Fall River’s residents. Today, there are hundreds of activities under the Healthy City umbrella, dozens of projects addressing the city’s top health priorities and an entire community of businesses, government and public agencies lending their support. Most importantly, the effort is creating an enduring infrastructure aimed at supporting healthy behaviors, according to APHA member Mike Coughlin, Fall River’s director of health and human services. “The possibilities are endless,” Coughlin told The Nation’s Health. “I’m really optimistic about being able to show solid improvement and positive outcomes just a few years from now.”
Fall River kids play tug-of-war at a July 2007 summer festival — one of the hundreds of Healthy City-related activities. Photo courtesy David Weed			While Fall River was no stranger to community health campaigns, Coughlin said, Healthy City was seen as a way to “ramp things up” and continue building on previous successes. To begin, Coughlin and his colleagues organized more than 30 community “visioning” sessions in the summer of 2003, attracting more than 1,000 residents to voice their top health concerns. From more than 1,000 participants came more than 1,000 recommendations on how to bring better health to Fall River, said David Weed, PsyD, coordinator of Healthy City Fall River. Finally, residents were asked to vote on their top five health priorities, of which the results were safety and substance abuse; environment and recreation; health education; adult education, job training and employment; and community planning and housing.
“It was crucial to get the community’s buy-in and investment...and (help) people understand what their role is in a healthy community,” said Weed, an APHA member. An accurate reflection of the public health field, Healthy City Fall River defines health broadly — “a healthy community is a place where jobs are plentiful, the housing stock is improving and it’s a safe place to live and work,” Coughlin noted. A key to the initiative’s success, Weed said, has been aligning with organizations not traditionally considered part of the public health community. One such organization is the non-profit Community Development Recreation, an educational facility with a particular emphasis on economically disadvantaged youth. Joining Healthy City was a “no-brainer,” according to Jamison Souza, the organization’s program coordinator. Among its many activities in connection with Healthy City, Souza’s organization brings health promotion into area middle schools, teaching kids about safe recreational groups they can join, diabetes prevention and good nutrition. Most recently, Community Development Recreation, in collaboration with Healthy City and the local Diabetes Association, challenged Fall River to lose a collective one ton of weight. “For all of our programs, youth are the foundation,” Souza said. “If you’re building a house, you don’t just throw the house up — you have to build the foundation first.” One such foundation is good nutrition, which both Coughlin and Weed hope will address Fall River’s high premature death rate — one of the highest rates in the state. In November, Healthy City Fall River, in conjunction with the city health department, received a five-year grant to promote good nutrition through an environmental approach. In other words, Weed said, it won’t be simply offering classes, but creating institutional and cultural changes, such as developing healthier school menus, advocating for better choices in restaurants and supporting local farmers markets. Also this year, the first concerted effort to bring medical providers into the Healthy City matrix will be launched to encourage physicians to promote prevention and refer their patients to Healthy City activities. Even though the challenges that face Fall River are steep — a smoking rate almost double the overall state rate, a high percentage of residents unable to work due to disability and a higher rate of adults living with diabetes — Weed said he is hopeful that Healthy City will make a difference. “We have the same struggles that anyone would in low-income communities,” he said. “We are not a community without its challenges, but those challenges are also opportunities.” For more information, visit www.archivedgfrpartners.com/healthycity.htm.
* Printed in The Nation's Health, December 2007/January 2008 Issue, available online to APHA members.
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