Cleveland County’s certified Healthy Carolinians Partnership
The Alliance for Health in Cleveland County, Inc.
The Alliance for Health in Cleveland County, Inc. is the county’s certified Healthy Carolinians Partnership. Healthy Carolinians is a county-wide process to establish public/private partnerships that bring together public health workers, health care providers, human service agencies, civic organizations, churches, schools, businesses, and community members to address the health and safety problems of their community. These partnerships are established through benchmarks which include:
- Establishing a steering committee of community leaders,
- Conducting a collaborative community health assessment that engages multiple agencies and community members,
- Identifying priorities and
- Mobilizing resources and developing interventions to address the priorities.
Healthy Carolinians is driven and led by the energy and vision of a statewide network of local partnerships and facilitated by the Office of healthy Carolinians/Health Education, North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services with governance and oversight from the Governor’s Task Force for Healthy Carolinians.
The Alliance for Health has been a certified Healthy Carolinians Partnership since 1997 and is scheduled for recertification in spring, 2008. The Alliance has a locally established Board of Directors responsible for meeting the benchmarks described above. Fifty+ partner members provide collaborative direction to the development of programs meeting identified priorities in the county.
Minority Health Council
The Minority Health Council of Cleveland County seeks to identify and address identified health disparities among minority populations. While their vision is to eliminate health disparities and ensure health equity, their mission is much more direct: “Assist, inform, educate, promote and improve health outcomes in the minority communities in Cleveland County.”
Established in 2004 as an outgrowth of the first Minority Health Conference, members are drawn from across the county and meet monthly to carry out their mission. Their work is data-driven and members continuously update identified disparities in health issues and focus on building equity for all citizens. A focus on healthy food choices and increased physical activity has always been a part of the work of the Council. Individuals and organizations can make lasting changes to health status by addressing either or both of these areas with minimal effort and great impact. Council members have tackled issues such as heart disease by implementing the Search Your Heart program in churches, addressing diabetes by promoting the diabetes prevention program available through the Cleveland County Family YMCA, initiating an educational campaign about the prevalence of teen pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases among minorities in the county, promoting healthy food policies and tobacco-free campuses in their churches and currently are learning about the risks of the opioid epidemic among county residents. In March 2018 the tenth Minority Health Conference was held with a focus on a holistic approach to health. “Mind, Body and Soul” was the conference theme with panel presentations on how cancer affects African-Americans in the county and on the science of addiction – how individuals become addicted to substances and what difficulties they encounter in breaking such addictions.
Membership in the Minority Health Council is open to all individuals in the county. For additional information about the activities of the Council, contact Mr. Robert Miller, Chair, at 704-473-4501 or via email at ghost55@carolina.rr.com.