Press release from Haywood County:
Waynesville, N.C. (December 19, 2022) – Haywood County announces a new strategic plan, called a Community Health Improvement Plan (CHIP), to address obesity, substance use, and mental health.
After completing the Community Health Assessment, the Healthy Haywood Coalition began exploring strategies to address the new health priorities. Members focused on strategies that are promising or already shown to work. Several are existing programs and have the potential for growth.
The CHIP is available to the public, and it highlights the strategies our county will focus on for the next three years. The 2022-2025 health strategies are:
Obesity- community wellness challenge and evidence-based nutrition programming. Only 26% of adults have healthy weight (decrease).
Substance Use- anti-stigma communications campaign
Adult binge drinking more than doubled to 12.5%.Mental Health- trauma-informed and mental health training programs. Twenty three percent of adults reported more than seven days of poor mental health in the past month (increase).
“Haywood’s community health improvement plan was informed by county health data. When over 18% of adults reported being unable access mental health services in the past year, we knew it was important to connect the community with mental health trainings,” said Megan Hauser, Haywood County Public Health Education Supervisor. ‘’Following our last CHIP, successes included gathering youth alcohol and vaping data and creating an action network focused on child literacy.’’
All of this information is now available in our CHIP, now available from Haywood County Health and Human Services, Haywood County Public Library branches, and www.healthyhaywood.com.
If you’re interested in helping our community act on these strategies, contact: Megan Hauser at 828-452-6675, get involved by participating in a Healthy Haywood action team, or keep informed by visiting www.healthyhaywood.com.
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