New tool will enable communities to make the healthy choice the easy choice

[Brattleboro, VT/June 10, 2009]—Meeting Waters YMCA and its partners in the Fit & Healthy Kids Coalition of Windham County are convening an assessment process with local leaders in Brattleboro, Westminster and the Deerfield Valley to measure supports for physical activity and healthy eating using a new tool—the Community Healthy Living Index (CHLI). CHLI enables community leaders to assess environments at the local level, including child care and after-school programs, neighborhoods, schools, and work sites.

Developed by YMCA of the USA with researchers from Stanford University, Harvard University, and St. Louis University, CHLI incorporates the review of over one hundred existing assessment tools, input from a prestigious advisory task force, a reiterative review process, and pilot testing at six YMCAs and the communities they serve. CHLI is one of the first tools of its kind to allow leaders to simultaneously assess multiple sites in a community and get the full picture of how they are doing in supporting and advancing healthy environments for their residents.

Following the assessment, the schools, organizations and communities that participated will develop an action plan that will enable them to plan for policy and environmental change strategies, identify and remove barriers, and expand opportunities for healthy living.

Community Healthy Living Index is one component of Meeting Waters YMCA’s Activate Windham County health promotion initiative. The regional YMCA is using CHLI in partnership with the Fit & Healthy Kids Coalition’s “Policies and Practices Work Group.” Funding for the CHLI project comes from a grant from the VT Department of Health.

All communities in Windham County were eligible to apply to be part of the CHLI process. Community teams in Brattleboro, Westminster and the Deerfield Valley took advantage of this opportunity. These teams are now involved in leading groups of stakeholders from schools, youth organizations, businesses and neighborhoods in doing self-assessments. The next phase is for these organizations to discuss their assessment results and develop improvement plans. The final step in the CHLI process is for a wide range of stakeholders to participate in both a community-wide assessment and an improvement planning session.

“The Community Healthy Living Index is helping us to take snapshots of our communities across all sectors and put a plan in place to address gaps and take advantage of existing opportunities,” said Steve Fortier who serves as Executive Director of Meeting Waters YMCA and Coordinator of its Activate Windham County efforts. “It is a unique tool in that it focuses not on health programs or services but rather on the environments and policies where we live, work, learn and play. While it is a very comprehensive assessment and planning process, in the end it is really about answering two simple questions—‘Is the healthy choice the easy choice in our schools, workplaces, child care organizations, and communities?’ and ‘If, not, what do we need to change to make it so?’”

Creating change at the policy level is an explicit goal of CHLI. Research has shown that policy approaches may be especially important in supporting healthy lifestyles because they benefit a greater number of people than programmatic approaches that aim to change individual behavior one person at a time. Here are a few examples:

• Communities that develop pedestrian- and bicycle-friendly infrastructure with links to destinations of interest have more physically active residents.
• Evidence suggests that healthy, active children learn more effectively and achieve more academically.
• Research has shown that accessibility to fruit and vegetables increases consumption of them.
• A study has shown that obesity rates increase as the distance to grocery stores increases. 

According to Kathleen White, a Public Health Nurse with the Brattleboro office of the Vermont Department of Health and coordinator of the Fit & Healthy Kids Coalition, the CHLI process fits perfectly within the organization’s mission of “Collaborating and sharing resources to stimulate and engage the community in raising fit and healthy children.”

“While many great things are going on already in Windham County communities, we know there is still more we can do to make our environments supportive of healthy lifestyles,” said White.  “The CHLI process will help us take a look at where we are today, but more importantly, plan where we want to go tomorrow.  The whole process is about looking forward and making changes that support our kids, families, and adults where they live, work, learn, and play.”

CHLI is a component of Activate America—the YMCA movement’s response to the nation’s growing health crisis. The 2,686 YMCAs in America are engaging their communities to provide better opportunities for people of all ages in their pursuit of health and well-being in spirit, mind, and body. 

Founded in 1895, the Meeting Waters YMCA is a charitable non-profit organization serving the communities in the Brattleboro, Bellows Falls, Springfield and Fall Mountain regions. Its mission is to build strong communities by inspiring all to develop healthy spirit, mind and body.