The Crucial Role of Advocate

Wellness

When communicable and chronic diseases or high-risk life style behaviors slip from community awareness or the public agenda, important community support for policy change, funding and collaboration can quickly slip from view as well….The Foundation always asks the essential question—What will happen to the individual and to the community if we ignore this issue.

In focusing its funding emphasis on wellness, the Foundation includes in that category health promotion, health education, disease prevention and injury prevention, with particular attention to the following issues:

• physical activity
• nutrition/obesity
• substance abuse, including tobacco use prevention and cessation
• responsible sexual behavior, especially the prevention of HIV/AIDS, STDs and adolescent pregnancy
• infant mortality
• mental health

Lifestyle Matters
The Centers for Disease Control of the U.S. Public Health Service estimate that about half of the mortality from the 10 leading causes of death in the United States can be linked to lifestyle factors such as nutrition, exercise, tobacco use alcohol use, weight control and safety behaviors.

The Foundation’s Role
The Foundation sees its roles in promoting wellness as:

• A provider of resources to encourage the application of proven wellness strategies in our geographic area.
• A supporter and developer of community initiatives designed to create long-term, positive changes in health status, public policy, and the social service delivery system.
• A promoter of innovation that engages community residents to improve the health of the community.

The Foundation's Wellness Strategy
In its approach to wellness issues, the Foundation takes a multi-dimensional approach, supporting projects and programs that intervene at the individual, community, and systems levels.

Individual interventions focus on influencing the provider community to adopt and implement proven clinical prevention services, supplemented by direct individual interventions such as screenings, when it is determined that they are needed to fill gaps in the provider community.

Community interventions focus on community-wide educational campaigns to increase knowledge about and to influence attitudes regarding health risk behaviors and our community's most pressing health-related issues.

System interventions focus on setting the stage for positive behavior change through the support of policy and environmental changes.

Within its multi-dimensional approach, the Foundation’s work is accomplished through different strategies:

• By developing initiatives and requests for proposals,
• By responding positively to grant applications that propose projects consistent with the Foundation's wellness strategy,
• By working with others in the community to develop needed services, and funding smaller community wellness projects through the Community Health Improvement Fund.

Funded Wellness Projects and Programs