What Guides Our Work — Healthy People Wood County

Healthy People Wood County team coordinators gather partners and create partnerships using the following as guidelines:

Our Guiding Principles

We work in the “gray area”. Our work is never straight-forward, often shape-shifting and changing directions, but we continuously work within our guidelines to enhance the overall health of Wood County residents.

Health for All

Everyone should have a fair and just opportunity to thrive, be healthy, and live their best life. Health outcomes should not be determined by race, ethnicity, class, gender, income, education, geography, or any other group status. We want to make sure everyone has the basic building blocks needed to have positive health and life outcomes. Good health for all allows us to be engaged members of our community, which in turn benefits all of Wood County.

Many health programs focus on individual behavior change. Unfortunately your own choices make up only 20% of what makes you healthy. For example - we don’t tell people “you should eat 1 cup of lettuce a day” - instead we work with community partners to make sure that local fruits and veggies are available and affordable through farmers markets, grocery stores, and school lunch lines! - an example of systems and environmental change.

Policy, Systems, Environmental Change

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Community Engagement

We firmly believe residents have the strongest voice when it comes to decision making. We work alongside and with the community - not for. As often as possible we conduct surveying, focus groups, 1:1 conversations, and outreach at target organizations to make sure a diverse resident voice is captured and has a hand in this work!

Sustainability

If we do our jobs right, we won’t be doing this work forever. We create partnerships and help enhance the work that is currently being done or more often fill in the gaps. We find innovative solutions that are upstream and bold. If the team is successful- the work envelopes into existing entities and we can address the next health priority for Wood County residents.