In January 2012, the Division of Prevention and Wellness at the Massachusetts Department of Public Health (MDPH) embarked on a planning process with more than 25 public sector and community-based partners to create the Commonwealth's first Coordinated Health Promotion and Chronic Disease Prevention Plan. This new Partnership will work to prevent chronic disease and reduce health disparities through policy, systems and environmental change strategies. A meeting of many of the partners took place on June 4, 2012 at the Federal Reserve Plaza in Boston to further the planning process by initiating eight Communities of Practice that will span a variety of disease entities to create a comprehensive plan for reducing the burden of chronic disease across the Commonwealth.  Additional work will continue over the coming months resulting in a more detailed state plan that will be available in the fall of 2012 at www.Mass.gov/DPH/chronicdisease. Click here for a   video of the first half of the meeting. For more information about the process, contact Cheryl Bartlett, RN Director, Bureau of Community Health and Prevention. (Bottom row photos, courtesy of the Mass. Dept. of Public Health Partnership for Health Promotion and Chronic Disease Prevention)

(Top row, left) Registrants for the day-long conference sign in at the fourth-floor conference room at the Federal Reserve Plaza in Boston. (Top row, center) Bureau of Community Health and Prevention director Cheryl Bartlett chats with former Mass Public Health Association executive director Valerie Bassett before the start of the meeting. (Top row, right) VOICES co-chair and YMCA Southcoast COO and Vice-President of Operations Nancy Bonell talks with Suzanne Nobrega of UMass-Lowell's Center for Health in the New England Workplace. (Row two, left and center) Ms. Bartlett describes how the program evolved before Dr. Wayne Giles, Director of the Division of Population Health for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention gives his presentation. (Row two, right) Department of Elder Affairs staff Emmett Schmarsow and Ruth Palombo talk during the break. (Row three, left) Acting Director of the Division of Prevention and Wellness at MDPH Lea Susan Ojamaa describes the eight Communities of Practice that will help to shape the state plan for the prevention of chronic disease over the coming years. (Row three, center) Kathy Foell, Director of the Heart Disease and Stroke Prevention and Control Program, talks with Dr. Giles during the break. (Row three, right) Valerie Bassett speaks with Janet McGrail Spillane of the American Cancer Society. (Bottom row) MDPH Commissioner John Auerbach address the group at noon prior to the group breaking into eight groups to initiate discussion on each of the eight Communities of Practice.