Cleveland: Leading by Example in Aetna's Healthiest Cities & Counties Challenge

Cleveland has been named as an Innovator City in the Aetna Foundation’s Healthiest Cities & Counties Challenge (the Challenge).

The Challenge is a $1.5 million prize competition in which small and mid-sized U.S. cities and counties as well as federally recognized tribes will compete over the course of several years to develop practical, evidence-based strategies to improve measurable health outcomes and promote health and wellness, equity and social interaction in their communities.

Through the Challenge, Cleveland plans to address the ways in which individual health behaviors are impacted at the interpersonal, organizational, community and public policy levels to reduce tobacco use rates.

To do so, Cleveland is partnering with the Cleveland Department of Public Health, Cleveland Office of Minority Health, Healthy Cleveland Initiative (within CDPH), Case Western Reserve University’s Prevention Research Center For Healthy Neighborhoods, Cuyahoga County Metropolitan Housing Authority, American Lung Association, American Heart Association, Cleveland Clinic, MetroHealth System, University Hospitals and Cuyahoga County Community College.

Cleveland’s participation in the Challenge comes at a critical time when the tobacco use rate in Cleveland is almost twice the national average. Furthermore, 22 percent of high school students in Cuyahoga County use tobacco products, and nearly all adult smokers in Cleveland began smoking by the age of 18 (CDPH).

As an Innovator City, Cleveland hopes to raise awareness of the harmful effects of tobacco use among its residents, increase access to smoking cessation resources, reduce the rate of smoking among adult residents and reduce the use of tobacco products in the youth population.

To learn more about the Challenge, visit www.healthiestcities.org.