Healthy Lucas County developed a three-year community health improvement plan that works to achieve health equity through strategies and action steps to improve the overall health and well-being of Lucas County residents of all ages.
The 2021-2024 Lucas County Community Health Improvement Plan (CHIP) specifies four priority areas – mental health & addiction, chronic disease, maternal & infant health, and community conditions – each of which has two strategies. The CHIP is a long-term, systematic effort to address health issues among Lucas County residents based on findings of the 2019/2021 Lucas County Community Health Assessment and other data sources.
“The Healthy Lucas County Executive Committee hopes agencies and organizations will embrace the plan’s priorities and strategies to assist community-wide efforts to improve the health and well-being of all Lucas County residents,” said Sister Dorothy Thum of Mercy Health, Chair of the Healthy Lucas County Executive Committee. “Above all else, this plan works to achieve health equity in Lucas County.”
The CHIP outlines eight strategies to address disparities in the community, provides action steps to achieve changes that will benefit everyone, and incorporates measurements to determine whether progress is being made. This Executive Summary provides an overview of the CHIP. Strategies in the CHIP include:
- Expand social and emotional instruction throughout Lucas County school districts to reduce youth depression.
- Increase audience and participant reach of mental health first aid trainings to reduce suicide deaths.
- Pilot an exercise prescription program within one primary care office to reduce obesity.
- Increase awareness of prediabetes screening, identification and referral through dissemination of the prediabetes risk assessment to reduce prediabetes.
- Provide community members with access to the most appropriate early childhood home visiting programs, as well as to increase awareness of infant mortality, to reduce the deaths of infants before their first of many birthdays.
- Train and maintain a culturally competent workforce of community health workers (CHWs) to provide care coordination to reduce infant mortality among African Americans and other families.
- Provide Housing Choice Vouchers for priority populations and collaborate to expand affordable housing options for all populations to improve housing affordability and quality.
- Support and align with recommendations in The Toledo Black Agenda / Toledo Racial Equity & Inclusion Council (TREIC) to increase awareness of and address racism and lack of health equity.
The CHIP helps Healthy Lucas County’s members set community health improvement priorities, as well as coordinate and target resources that promote health and well-being. It also supports and aligns with Ohio’s 2020-2022 State Health Improvement Plan.