Agenda 04-01-2004 - Laserfiche WebLink

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Attachment 5: BOCC /BOH Joint 04/01/04 FINAL DRAFT Executive Summary: Orange County Community Health Assessment 2003 Title: For Orange County — Choose Health! Orange County is a wonderful place to live, and our health statistics bear that out. We have many reasons to celebrate including good health and quality of life. Most Orange County residents are able to live a healthy lifestyle. But like any place, we also have areas of concern and residents who are unable to choose health because they lac resources, access to, or knowledge of available services. Healthy Carolinians of Orange County is working to improve the health of all residents of Orange County by working together with community members to promote healthy lifestyles, advocate for better access to health care services and programs, and in so doing, empower all our residents to choose health. ( (put this in a sidebar box ?) What is Healthy Carolinians 2010? Healthy Carolinians organizes community coalitions to address the leading health issues. These groups work together to achieve the Healthy Carolinians 2010 health objectives developed by the Governors Task Force on Healthy Carolinians. Healthy Carolinians 2010 objectives mirror the national Healthy People 2010 objectives, developed by the US Department of Health and Human Services. The overall goals of Healthy Carolinians include increasing the span of healthy life, removing health disparities and promoting preventive health services. There are dozens of objectives that cover 12 focus areas of health including access to health care, chronic disease, community health, disability, environmental health, health promotion, infant mortality, infectious disease, injury, mental health, older adult health, and oral health. The hope is to achieve all of the objectives by the year 2010.) Over the course of 2003, Healthy Carolinians of Orange County and the Orange County Health Department worked with many community members to assess the health of Orange County residents. This publication is a summary of the results from the community health assessment. The full assessment report is a result of both primary and secondary data gathering and analysis involving more than 700 residents and more than 50 agencies and organizations throughout Orange County. This summary does not reflect all of the data or nuances in the full report, rather it is intended to provide county residents with a picture of areas of celebration and areas of concern for our county. (Box with web address "The full report is available on -line at the following link: www.co.orange.nc.us/he,alth/CHAReport-p-d-f it can also be found in the Chapel Hill, Carrboro and Orange County Public Libraries ") Two overarching themes emerged from this assessment. The first is that the cost of living and the cost of staying healthy are too high in Orange County and the second is