Value of Investing in Your Community’s Health: How to Build a Healthy Community By Sandra Melstad, MPH, Public Health Consultant, South Dakota Department of Health Investing in local, human, institutional, organizational, and environmental resources to support and build a healthy community is integral to long term health promotion and prevention of chronic diseases. A Community Health Needs Assessment is an effective, information gathering and data collection process which can help a community understand its health status and what resources are available to learn how to build a healthy community. How to Understand your Community’s Health In order to build a healthy community, it is important to understand that multi-sector collaborations of key stakeholders, strategic investments, as well as local policy, systems, and environment change, are necessary to create a healthy community environment.1 Key stakeholders, such as elected officials, local health advocates, community coalitions, schools, and business owners, are crucial to help initiate and drive the building process.
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Local health information can also be a powerful vehicle for understanding the health of a community— highlighting both the existence of problems and opportunities for improvement. Local data can also guide community action to support policy changes and improve program effectiveness.2 Engaging in a collaborative approach to understanding the health of a community is the first step to collecting information and data on local assets and resources, as well as gaps that exist regarding chronic disease prevention and control. Safe areas to be physically active, (i.e., parks, community centers), access to healthful foods, tobaccofree parks, and sidewalks are examples of assets and resources that help support a healthy community.1 Statistics on individual health behaviors, such as nutrition and physical activity, tobacco use; and access to health care services are examples of data that can be collected to understand factors that also contribute community health. Just as local government and leaders rely on the facts to inform their decision making process, a Community Health
SOUTH DAKOTA MUNICIPALITIES
