Group looks at how to improve Cleveland County's health
The Healthy Together Cleveland coalition has released its two priority areas to improve the health of Cleveland County residents.
A group of community leaders, health professionals and county residents met in November to discuss and prioritize a list of health categories that will be the focus of its work in the coming months. The two priority areas that the coalition will focus its efforts on are physical activity and nutrition.
“We are excited to make the public aware of the two priority areas we will begin to focus on as we work with our community partners,” said Jonathan Johnson, Healthy Together Cleveland steering committee chair. “We have been working for months and believe these areas reflect the needs of our communities in Cleveland County.”
A group of 42 community leaders, health professionals and community members met to review current health data in Cleveland County and to narrow down the data to focus on two achievable health categories. Some of the organizations attending the meeting were Atrium Health, Foothills Farmers Market, Minority Health Council and Healthcare Foundation of Cleveland County.
“Nutrition was chosen as one of the priority areas because the data shows that Cleveland County has food deserts throughout the county and 37% of our county residents have a Body Mass Index (BMI) over 30,” said DeShay Oliver, deputy health director, Cleveland County Public Health Center. “We know that poor diet contributes to conditions such as obesity, heart disease, diabetes and even some cancers. Increasing access to healthy food provides opportunities for more nutritional food choices, which can improve health outcomes and our county’s leading causes of death.”
“The second health priority area, physical activity, is highly important to Cleveland County, given that 50% report they lack access to exercise opportunities,” said Gina Carter, executive director of Child Care Connections. "Of course, we will need to dig deeper to understand the real barriers, but with some education about what physical activity can be and some innovation about how to make it happen, this is definitely a category that we can work together to change."
Earlier this year, a national survey of health data ranked Cleveland County 83rd out of 100 North Carolina counties.
Now that the coalition has chosen its two focus areas, it will begin working with its community partners to inform the public and determine how best to deliver services and resources to help improve health. The coalition will achieve this through a public information campaign over the next three to six months.
The coalition will also begin having community conversations with individuals who are impacted by barriers to healthy eating and physical activity options to begin identifying opportunities for improvement.
Anyone interested in learning more about Healthy Together Cleveland should contact Jordan Frye, project and program coordinator for Healthy Together Cleveland at Healthytogethercleveland@atriumhealth.org.
Healthy Together Cleveland is a coalition dedicated to improving the health of Cleveland County by engaging the community, leaders and organizations to align and integrate current health and social efforts for maximum impact and developing action plans to support and sustain these efforts.
This article originally appeared on The Shelby Star: Group looks at how to improve Cleveland County's health
