|
|
What Does Our Community Need?
Let's Start With You.
OP-ED by Coletta Barrett
PUBLISHED: September/October 2011
READ PAGE FLIP or READ PDF
We’ve all seen the reports. In 2010 – Louisiana ranked
49th in America’s Health Rankings by United Health Foundation,
received a D rating from the National Alliance on Mental
Illness, a D+ rating by the American College of Emergency
Physicians, etc. In 2011 East Baton Rouge Parish ranked 19
out of 64 in parish health outcomes. You get the point. And
this is not what we want for our community. In 2007, Mayor
Holden said it’s time to take corrective action, and created the
Mayor’s Healthy City Initiative (MHCI) – HealthyBR. The Initiative
was launched as a movement to get the community engaged,
involved, and at the table for taking responsibility for
the outcomes of our city. Soon realizing that the task was more
than just one committee could tackle, the Mayor divided the
movement into 3 separate, but compatible and focused initiatives:
HealthyBR – focused on healthier eating and more active
lifestyle; MedBR – with a focus on access to care and health
outcomes; and the Innovation Center – focused on community
efforts to address Childhood Obesity.
The Innovation Center Childhood Obesity is an epidemic.
According to the National Initiative for Children’s Healthcare
Quality and the Child Policy Research Center, almost 36% of
Louisiana children are considered either overweight or obese.
To assist with the development of a community based action
plan, Mayor Holden applied for a technical assistance grant
from the National League of Cities Institute for Youth, Education,
and Families (YEF Institute). To his team’s credit, Baton
Rouge was selected as one of three cities to participate in the
Municipal Leadership for Healthy Southern Cities technical assistance
project. The three cities awarded the grants were Little
Rock, Ark., Tupelo, Miss. and Baton Rouge, La. As part of
the 18-month project, each city receives customized technical
assistance from the YEF Institute and other national experts.
The goal of the project is to advance local efforts to combat childhood
obesity through the development and implementation of
community wellness plans. The plans would include policies to
expand access to fresh, healthy foods; land use protections for
community gardens; incentives to mobile produce markets that
locate in low income areas; grants and opportunities that encourage
grocery stores to locate in underserved areas; government
and/or school procurement policies that favor local healthy
foods; etc. Policies to increase access to recreation include: joint
use agreements for recreation facilities; mandated physical activity
requirements for city-funded youth programs; conversion/rehabilitation
of blighted areas into community gardens, parks or
green spaces. Meanwhile work will continue on a city master plan
that includes provisions to encourage walking and biking; a policy
to ensure sidewalk continuity and direct routes for pedestrians
and cyclists; streetscape design guidelines aimed at promoting
walkability and bikeability; and our continued commitment to
ensure that children live within walking distance of a playground,
park or recreation center. While much has been done the past few
years to raise awareness of childhood obesity, increase access to
bike paths, walking paths, etc – there is much more work to be
done. The Innovation Center of the MHCI continues to collaborate
on effective community based strategies to bend the curve
on childhood obesity.
HealthyBR In the beginning, HealthyBR was the overarching
umbrella of the Mayor’s Healthy City Initiative. In August of
2010, partners of HealthyBR agreed to conduct the Community
Healthy Living Index (CHLI) assessment. Considered a best practice
community assessment, CHLI was developed in partnership
with experts from Stanford, Harvard, and St. Louis Universities
with support from the Center for Disease Control (CDC) and
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF). The YMCA of the
USA created CHLI in response to our nation’s rising chronic disease
rates. The CHLI assessment of Baton Rouge identified gaps
in community resources and helped identify opportunities for
building strong partnerships aimed at improving the health of
our community. For a copy of the CHLI Assessment, log on to
www.HealthyBR.com. Recommendations for action as a result of
the CHLI Assessment include transportation, city hall enacted
policies, school based interventions, healthcare, business and
community based programming. The chart below outlines specific
tactics that are a part of the HealthyBR 3-year Action Plan.
The HealthyBR movement has certainly made inroads in educating
the public on health issues facing Baton Rouge with the
monthly production of Healthy Living in BR TV program. All
previous 12 programs are now available on the HealthyBR website.
Since the launch of HealthyBR, advocates for bike trails have
increased the miles of bike paths from 23.4 miles to over 67.6
miles. There are now well over 1,000 miles of sidewalks to promote
physical activity. The task of promoting healthier eating and
more active lifestyles will take years of focus in order to impact
Baton Rouge outcomes. Again, there is much work to be done.
MedBR MedBR was spun off of the HealthyBR work group
when the Mayor’s Healthy City Initiative deemed that the task
of broadly addressing community health was larger than what
HealthyBR could focus on. MedBR’s focus is on access to care
and health outcomes. Who knew that President Obama’s Patient
Protection and Affordable Care Act (Affordable Care Act) enacted
in March of 2010 would so eloquently lay out the path forward
for MedBR. One of the new requirements of the ACA was
for each hospital to participate in a Community Health Needs
Assessments (“CHNA”).While the CHNA requirements will not
be effective until taxable years beginning after March 23, 2012,
hospital leadership across the Greater Baton Rouge area felt
compelled to begin the journey “sooner rather than later.” In the
Spring of 2011, hospital leaders invited other health care collaborators
and partners to the table to begin a comprehensive community
health assessment. The team evaluated processes and
methods for conducting the assessment. Looking at Community
Health Assessment best practices, open sources of healthcare related
data, and other information publically available, the group
began to identify community health needs, information gaps,
and barriers to completing a comprehensive assessment. After
reviewing publically reported and available data, the team validated
those data with qualitative feedback from various stakeholders
in the hospital and broader healthcare community.
The group priorities listed below are in alpha order and are not
ranked for priority: Adolescent health (risky behaviors, abuse,
culture of violence); Barriers (low health literacy, transportation,
compliance, access to physicians, public policy); Cancer;
Child Health (injury prevention, immunizations, abuse, vision,
asthma, prenatal); Depression/mental health/substance abuse;
Diabetes; Heart disease/high blood pressure/stroke; HIV/AIDS/
STDs; Lifestyle issues (tobacco use, substance abuse, diet and
exercise); and Obesity.
This list of top ten issues impacting health outcomes will be used
to formulate the MedBR 3-year action plan. One best practice already
implemented by MedBR has been the launch of MedLineBR
– a nurse call, triage line that medically screens the caller and connects
the “patient” with medical, dental, mental health, and other
resources available in the community. The MedLineBR notices are
in area hotel rooms to connect out of town visitors in need of
medical advice – and billboards are up in North Baton Rouge and
the Interstate promoting MedLineBR as a resource for access to
care for the uninsured and underinsured.
Call to Action So what does all this mean for Baton Rouge? It
means that ANYONE who wants to make a difference in our community
can find a place in this Healthy City Initiative movement.
Going online to see what HealthyBR is all about, making sure that
your company is a committed partner of the Mayor’s Healthy City
Initiative, finding out how you can volunteer your time to support
many of the programs and services of the MHCI – are but a few
specific examples of how you can put your passion for a GREAT
Baton Rouge into action. Sharing experiences and knowledge are
not just something we do in addition to solving problems – in
Baton Rouge it’s the WAY we solve problems. Get involved, share
your gifts and talents, make a difference in our community. Sir
Francis Bacon said – Knowledge is Power. Coletta Barrett says –
Shared Knowledge is Ultimate Power. Join us in the MHCI movement
to make Baton Rouge, the next BEST city in America!
|
