Will Humble Public Health, Wills Blog

Public Health Week & AZPHA Partners’ Spotlight: Healthy Communities

Each Spring the American Public Health Association celebrates National Public Health Week. We’re joining them locally by highlighting some of the work being done by our Organizational Members that focus on some of the areas related to this year’s theme: Protecting, Connecting and Thriving: We Are All Public Health

Public health is more than just health care. It’s the steps we take to make sure our neighborhoods and environment are free from pollution. It’s making sure our food and water are safe to eat and drink.

It’s also the relationships we foster in our communities. We’re all interconnected. When we all come together to support public health, all of us — individuals, families, communities, and the public health field — can achieve the goals of public health. 

Theme 2: Healthy Communities

Where we live, learn, work and play have a greater impact on how long and how well we live than individual behaviors or health care. To improve the health and well-being of Arizonans, we must change the underlying conditions in our communities.  

AZPHA works with the Arizona Partnership for Healthy Communities and their vision that all of Arizona’s communities should be healthy places to live. 

Their unique approach brings the private and public sectors together to ensure that banks, health insurers, and health care providers are active partners alongside the government and nonprofit sectors.

  • Their Live Well Arizona Incubator coaches teams that have identified a geographically-based health issue through the collaboration process and prepares the team to expand its work.
  • They also provide technical help collaborations can be established, projects developed, and communities can thrive.
  • Their engaging events offer cross-sector opportunities to share data, best practices, and policies to make our communities healthy.

Learn more about Arizona Partnership for Healthy Communities on their website

Will Humble Public Health, Wills Blog

Public Health Week & AZPHA Partners’ Spotlight: Civic Engagement

Each Spring the American Public Health Association celebrates National Public Health Week. We’re joining them locally by highlighting some of the work being done by our Organizational Members that focus on some of the areas related to this year’s theme: Protecting, Connecting and Thriving: We Are All Public Health

Public health is more than just health care. It’s the steps we take to make sure our neighborhoods and environment are free from pollution. It’s making sure our food and water are safe to eat and drink.

It’s also the relationships we foster in our communities. We’re all interconnected. When we all come together to support public health, all of us — individuals, families, communities, and the public health field — can achieve the goals of public health. 

Theme 1: Civic Engagement

“Civic health” refers to the civic, social, and political strength of a community. It includes civic engagement and reflects the community’s ability to unify to resolve problems. “Civic engagement” refers to the extent to which individuals and groups involve themselves in efforts to edify their community.

Since its founding, AZPHA Organizational Member, the The Vitalyst Health Foundation has connected, supported, and informed efforts that strengthen civic health. Volunteerism has been a key mission from the start, stemming from the robust groups of volunteers who provided charity care and helped at the hospitals.

As the foundation’s brand has evolved, so has its approach to strengthening civic health. Vitalyst has:

  • connected residents through Arizona Town Hall for effective deliberations and consensus building;
  • supported Arizona Gives Day, which inspires charitable giving and more donations to local nonprofits;
  • supported place-based community development through the Live Well AZ Incubator; and
  • informed legislation and public policy, and nonpartisan awareness building. These efforts represent opportunities for the community to engage in civic life toward the common good. They are examples of activities that build social and cultural cohesion, and ultimately civic health.

Civic participation improves civic health, increases the social connectedness of communities, gives participants a sense of belonging, and connects them to the people and resources they need to thrive.

Civic engagement includes full access to voting, which requires fair and inclusive voting systems. In a healthy democracy, inclusive voting systems end inequities in voter registration and voting turnout. Fair and inclusive voting means policies are in place to assure that everyone who is eligible to vote can register and vote.

See the Full Report: Strengthening Civic Health in Arizona – The Intersection of Civic Engagement and Health

Will Humble Public Health, Wills Blog

Celebrate National Public Health Week by Watching ‘The Invisible Shield’ on PBS

The Four-Part PBS Series Exploring the Hidden Public Health Infrastructure in America That Saves Lives Every Day

This award-winning series reveals how the field of public health has saved countless lives, protecting people from the constant threat of disease, and increasing lifespans.

Using vivid character portraits, interviews, and archival elements, The Invisible Shield depicts public health as a progressive and revolutionary movement, whose successes have come from a diverse, cross-disciplinary coalition of dedicated public servants (like you) working together to improve the conditions of society.

The series looks to history to show how public health practices have emerged over centuries as humanity confronted problems arising from urbanization, industrialization, and globalization.

It examines public health’s major achievements — including the more than 30-year increase in life expectancy between 1900 and 2000 and the eradication of smallpox in the 1970s.

Public health challenges are also explored, including the COVID-19 pandemic, which highlights how misunderstood, undervalued, and underfunded public health is.

Episode 1: The Old Playbook  Public health has transformed human life, silently protecting us from disease and fatalities. Interventions large and small — from quarantines to crosswalks, vaccines to modern sanitation — have allowed American society to flourish and keep illness, injury, and death at bay.

Episode 2: Follow The Data Data has been an essential public health tool since at least the 17th century, when cities began regularly recording mortality statistics. Data science has guided public health policy since the earliest practices of data collection in the 1800s to identify the spread of disease.

Episode 3: Vaccination & Inequity From the early days of vaccination in the late 1700s through the rapid development of the COVID-19 vaccine, scientists have achieved extraordinary feats to combat, contain, and eradicate disease — but solutions only work if people trust the science.

Episode 4: The New Playbook Inequality, structural racism, inadequate health care access, insufficient job protections, and a badly neglected public health system all contributed to catastrophic systemic failures.

All four episodes of The Invisible Shield are now streaming on PBS.org and the PBS App including Arizona PBS Passport – Arizona PBS

Note: Arizona PBS Passport is one of the benefits you receive when you support Arizona PBS by giving $5/month or $60/year. With Passport, you can stream your favorite PBS programs – full seasons of Masterpiece, episodes of Nova, Arizona Horizon, Nature, American Experience, Great Performances, Independent Lens and more.
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