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Heart Healthy Waukesha County will be recognized throughout southeast Wisconsin as a champion, key resource and role model for collaborative community partnerships focused on achieving positive, measurable outcomes in improving health through systemic change. Our Vision of a Heart Healthy Community Key components of a system of community heart health: Leadership. Leaders demonstrate visible commitment to heart health as a community and organizational priority. Leaders create policies and procedures that support improvements in cardiac health. They remove barriers to healthy lifestyles and provide incentives to adhere to heart healthy guidelines. Leaders model appropriate/desirable behaviors. Policies. Policies exist at all levels — governmental, educational, workplace, and organizational — that foster healthy lifestyles. Heart healthy policies are evidence-based and supported by community data. Community Alliances and Partnerships. Community alliances and partnerships maximize resources and enable communities to take an active role in heart health. Community organizations (e.g., churches, senior centers, fitness centers and others), work sites, health departments, clinics, and healthcare systems use partnerships to develop evidence-based programs and policies that support heart health. Access. In a heart healthy community, everyone has access to screening, counseling and referral for heart disease risk factors as well as access to resources for safe physical activity; affordable, healthy food choices; and a tobacco-free environment. Everyone has opportunities to practice healthy lifestyles. Environment. Physical, social, and workplace environments throughout the community are conducive to improving and maintaining heart healthy lifestyles. Self-management. In a heart healthy community, people take a central role in determining their own wellness. Health advocates, agencies, and providers work to foster responsible personal health decisions. They work with people to help them identify and define problems, set priorities, establish goals, create plans, and solve problems. Information. Accurate information to support healthy decisions at all levels (individual, family, employer, community, etc.) is accessible to everyone in the community regardless of language, literacy, or educational or cultural background. |