Finney County’s Journey to Promote Health, Well-Being, and Equity
Five years into the Sentinel Communities Surveillance Project, LiveWell Finney County has solidified its role as a trusted leader for health in the community.
Other leadership comes from the health department and various other nonprofits and local businesses. Stakeholders in Finney County were working on several initiatives to support well-being of community residents in 2017, focused on positive health behaviors and supporting youth and working families, many of which have continued and evolved over the past five years. New efforts have been initiated to address mental health and improve access to healthcare. With regard to the health narrative in Finney County, over the past five years, stakeholders began investing more intentionally in the built environment to promote health, though the focus has remained on encouraging healthy behaviors. With regard to health equity, Finney County became more intentionally focused on meeting the acute needs of historically under-resourced populations, while also increasing access to health-promoting amenities for the community at-large.
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Community Capacity
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Major Initiatives
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Health Priorities and Narrative
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Health Equity
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Lessons Learned: Where is Finney County Five Years Later?
Finney County’s journey to promote health, well-being, and equity is one that illustrates a slow evolution of a focus on health education and awareness-raising to one that considers the role of the built environment. Existing engagement with historically under-resourced communities has deepened, with more services available and additional partners providing support, though these residents are still not empowered or visible to political leaders and true commitments to equity have not been made. Other communities can learn from Finney County’s approaches to make these changes, as well as the challenges they encountered, to inform their own journeys. And as COVID-19 recovery continues, with historic funding flowing to local communities, future research could consider the ways prevailing narratives related to health, equity, and well-being influences community health decisions moving forward.
Finney County has leveraged its primary coalition for health, as well as the opportunities presented by the COVID-19 pandemic, to elevate health- and well-being-related issues in the community. Yet governance and financial challenges and a transitional population have made it difficult to create momentum to make significant progress on health.
Facilitators:
Single coalition enhances coordination
Novel communication strategies help to reach residents
- Pandemic-related expansion of health care and attention to communities experiencing vulnerability
Barriers:
Lack of representation of diverse community
Lack of public health capacity
Lack of nonprofit capacity
Challenges to consistent community engagement