COUNTY RECOGNIZED FOR HEALTH INITIATIVE

Cape Girardeau County is one of 22 communities to be recognized today for improving the health care status of their communities.

The Healthier Communities Committee, made up of representatives of the Cape Girardeau Chamber of Commerce, the Cape Girardeau County Area Medical Society Inc., the Cape Girardeau County Public Health Center, the Community Caring Council, St. Francis Medical Center, Southeast Missouri Hospital and Southeast Missouri State University, will be recognized as the "most ambitious or far-reaching community development strategy."

The committee will undertake a communitywide health assessment to determine health-care needs and assets. Part of that assessment will include a series of town meetings to get input from residents about what their needs are, said Charlotte Craig, director of the county health center.

The Healthier Communities Committee will hold a kickoff meeting Thursday to announce its strategies and goals.

The Community Health Improvement Awards, which will be presented today by Gov. Mel Carnahan and Dr. Coleen Kivlahan, director of the Missouri Department of Health, recognize communities working in partnership with the state's CHART (Community Health Assessment Resource Team) initiative.

"We're all tickled to death and I feel sure it's well-deserved," Craig said, adding that none of the committee members will attend today's ceremony in Jefferson City because they'll all be too busy preparing for Thursday's kickoff meeting.

"I think it's very exciting because the Healthier Communities Committee has pulled together so many people from all across the community to work on this, and that's what makes things happen, when people pull together," said Shirley Ramsey, executive coordinator of the Community Caring Council, which is spearheading the assessment effort.

"I think that many, many benefits are going to come out of this effort, and I'm very pleased that the Community Caring Council has been the catalyst for this to happen," Ramsey said.

Dr. Maureen Dempsey, physician project coordinator for the CHART initiative, said it's important that each community work to determine its own health-care needs and solutions to those needs.

"I think a lot of solutions to health problems need to occur at the local level, that the community has to have some ownership of what the problems are and what the implications of the problems are," Dempsey said.

Doctors have learned that traditional patient care has "much better outcomes" when patients themselves buy into the program, she said. The same is true for community health assessments.

"If you have local communities that are looking at their health-care needs and have solutions that are acceptable to the community, the results are going to be much better," Dempsey said.

"Besides, no two communities in Missouri are alike," she said. "I can't come in from the outside and say, your community needs to start this program when I don't know the individual needs and problems in that community."

Some common issues are being identified across the state, she said.

Dempsey said, "Most people are talking about prevention or typical broad problems, such as access to health care or access to providers or access to specialized types of health care."

The following communities will also be recognized in today's ceremony: Dent County Community Betterment Organization-Healthy Communities 2000; St. Joseph Healthy Communities Group; Cedar County CHART Coalition; Warren County; Community Health Improvement Board, Stone and Taney counties; Health Communities 2000, St. Charles, Warren and Lincoln counties; Jefferson County; Central Missouri Community Assessment Resource Evaluation Strategy; Polk County Health Assessment Team; Advocates for a Healthy Community, Greene County; Normandy Township; Independence Community Health Group; Pettis County CHART; Chamber of Commerce Community Health Improvement Task Force, Boone County; Saline, Chariton and Carroll counties; Ripley County; Oregon County; Grundy County; Tower Grove South, St. Louis; Phelps County; and Perry County.