Healthiest Cities and Counties Challenge

Healthiest Cities and Counties Challenge

2020–2022

National

Overview

In 2020, Aetna Foundation, American Public Health Association (APHA), National Association of Counties (NACo), and Healthy Places by Design partnered to support 20 city- and county-level teams to advance health equity within their communities through the Healthiest Cities and Counties Challenge (HCCC). Local teams included nonprofit organizations, academic institutions and local governments, which collaborated across disciplines and alongside residents and local leaders to address barriers to health and wellbeing in their communities. The Challenge was designed to accelerate systems-level approaches to community health with a focus on equity, collaboration, and community engagement.

Our Approach

Working with Aetna, APHA, and NACo, Healthy Places by Design led the Challenge initiative’s peer learning collaborative. Monthly virtual sessions included webinars, peer exchange sessions, affinity groups, and topical ad hoc discussions. These learning sessions were co-designed and facilitated with cohort members, which laid a foundation for shared leadership, deeper engagement with their community members, and sustainability of their efforts. As coordinating co-host and facilitator, Healthy Places by Design helped create the space needed to work through power dynamics and have honest conversations about community change.

Results & Impact

As a result of the network, HCCC project leaders prioritized and self-organized around common strategies, including youth leadership and enhancing nutrition security with charitable food agencies. In addition, food policy council coordinators in some Challenge communities organized as an affinity group (with support from the planning team) and brought new organizations with food policy council expertise into their conversations.

The peer learning collaborative paved the way for Challenge grantees to adopt frameworks and best practices. For example, after the coordinating team hosted a workshop on developing 15% solutions, the Wheeling, West Virginia team incorporated the framework into their steering committee meetings, enhancing decision-making roles among partners and residents to reduce the burden of health challenges in their community.

• The New Brunswick, New Jersey project team, led by Elijah’s Promise, created the “Your Food, Your Choice” internship program to improve the food served in local public schools. The program was designed for New Brunswick High School students to learn about food systems within their community and encourage student feedback on school food. Students worked with the school nutrition and other staff to create more culturally significant menu items, increase access to drinking water, and develop school gardens.
• In Cumberland County, North Carolina, the Department of Public Health and its partners sought to decrease inequities in neighborhoods of color and among military soldiers and dependents within the Fort Bragg military base. Organizers centered their project around local residents to conduct a food system assessment and developed a joint county-military Fort Bragg and Cumberland County Food Policy Council. The council focused their work on expanding transportation to healthy food sources, improving communication of food resources to citizens, volunteers and food providers, and expanding the use of WIC/EBT for farmer’s markets and other food markets.
• In Cambria County, Pennsylvania, the 1889 Foundation and its partners developed a “HUB” model to better coordinate systems of care with social service and health care providers. Organizers trained and deploying community health workers to address both access to food and health services by connecting residents to community resources. They trained health system staff and residents to become community health worker certified trainers, expanding their reach and the HUB infrastructure within and outside of Cambria County.

“Working with Healthy Places by Design has been one of the highlights of this initiative since the start. The team’s commitment to equity aligns perfectly with the spirit of the Healthiest Cities & Counties Challenge, and our 20 community-based grantees deeply value the peer-to-peer connections that Healthy Places by Design so thoughtfully curated each month.”

— Brittany Perrotte, Healthiest Cities & Counties Challenge Project Director, APHA