​Wake County Shares Priorities For Improving Community Health And Well-Being

Press release from the Wake County Government:

by Stephen R. Walston on 7/2/2020 11:35 AM
Category: Human Services; WakeGOV Home Page

Wake County and
its community partners have identified the issues they will focus on to improve
the health and wellbeing of county residents over the next three years.

From March 2018 through April 2019, more than 100 agency
and community partners collaborated to complete the 2019
Community Health Needs Assessment. This assessment examines the overall
health needs of residents and allows county stakeholders to evaluate how best
to improve and promote the health of the community.

The five focus
areas identified as county-wide priorities are:

• Transportation
  options and public transit;
• Employment;
• Access
  to care;
• Mental
  health/substance use disorders; and
• Housing
  and homelessness.

“As our county
continues to evolve and grow, we must ensure

that we’re taking
the right steps to address the needs of all of our residents,” said Wake County
Commissioner Susan Evans. “Through our partnerships and community support,
we’ve successfully identified the areas we should focus on to make this a
reality.”

Every three years, counties across the nation are
required by the federal government to assess the health needs of their
communities through the Community Health Needs Assessment process. In the off
years, counties must issue a State of the County Health Report with updates on
progress made toward reaching the goals of the assessment.

To avoid the duplication of efforts among agencies in
Wake County, this assessment was created in collaboration with:

• Advance Community Health;
• Alliance Health;
• Duke Raleigh Hospital;
• UNC REX Healthcare;
• United Way of the Greater Triangle;
• Wake County Human Services;
• Wake County Medical Society Community Health
  Foundation;
• WakeMed Health and Hospitals; and
• Youth Thrive.

Moving forward, the process will be
combined with recommendations from the Population Health Task Force, through a
county-wide health initiative called Live Well Wake. This program brings together the county’s
major health organizations and community members to address the needs
identified. Action steps and measures of success will be developed with
partners and stakeholders, using a results-based accountability methodology.

Although the report is done, staff and volunteers will
develop action plans and strategies in the coming months to address the identified
priorities. Progress on the initiatives in the report will be tracked by Live
Well Wake and be updated on their website.

A full summary of the assessment and priorities can be
found by visiting wakegov.com/wellbeing.

This press release was produced by the Wake County Government. The views expressed here are the author’s own.