| About The Healthy Community Checklist
Purpose of the Checklist
The Michigan Department of Community Health and the Michigan Surgeon General’s Office have a goal of helping Michigan’s citizens achieve better health through increased physical activity, healthier eating and adopting tobacco-free lifestyles. People cannot be active, eat well, and sustain a tobacco-free lifestyle unless their social and physical environment supports these behaviors. Communities that support smoke-free environments at work and in public places, provide safe and convenient opportunities for physical activity, and offer reasonably priced healthy food options at local grocery stores and restaurants promote better health among their residents.
The purpose of the Healthy Community Checklist is to enable Michigan communities to
- Assess themselves on how well they are doing at making it easy for residents to be healthy;
- Increase their awareness of the types of steps they can take to promote better health among community residents; and
- Identify and further define actions they can take that will make a difference.
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Checklist Overview and Summary
The Healthy Community Checklist is a 40-item online questionnaire intended to provide a quick assessment of a community’s health environment with regard to promoting and supporting:
- Physical Activity
- Healthy Eating & Healthy Weight
- Smoke-Free Environments & Tobacco-Free Lifestyles
The online Checklist is available on this website. Michigan communities
that wish to complete the Checklist must register to access their Healthy Community Checklist. A printable preview copy of the Healthy Community Checklist is available in the Preview the Checklist section of this website.
The Checklist takes 15 to 30 minutes to complete online after conducting the research and collecting the data necessary to answer the questions. It is estimated that it will take 3 to 6 hours for research and data collection. To assist communities in completing the checklist, a Resource Guide is provided. The Resource Guide includes pointers to likely data sources within most communities along with other information to assist communities in completing the checklist.
The Checklist is structured by points/places where data will be collected rather than the three health topic areas. The first six sections each represent a location or set of related locations where important opportunities exist for creating healthier community environments.
- Section 1 — Community Policies & Planning
- Section 2 — Restaurants & Grocery Stores
- Section 3 — Schools
- Section 4 — Worksites
- Section 5 — Community Resources & Programs
- Section 6 — Local Media
The last section, Section 7 — Summary & Next Steps, is a planning section to allow communities to reflect on what they learned in completing the Checklist and to identify possible next steps based on the assessment results combined with their own ideas about what would best serve the community.
The Healthy Community Checklist also includes two scorecards — one organized by
Section and the other organized by topic (physical activity, healthy eating, tobacco-free).
Scores are calculated each time you save when completing the online checklist, thereby giving
each community instant feedback each time they enter and save their data.
Registered communities can complete a new Checklist assessment as often as
they like to measure progress and engage others in they community. Automated scorecards are
available for each Checklist the community does.
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Benefits of Completing the Checklist
All of us would like to be able to honestly claim that our community is a very desirable place to live. And a community that promotes good health is a desirable place indeed.
Clean air — indoors and out; well-lit bike paths, sidewalks and walking trails that connect residential areas to shopping, schools and places of worship; easy access to grocery stores, farmers, markets and restaurants that offer fresh produce and delicious healthful foods at reasonable price rank high on most peoples’ list of desirable characteristics.
Michigan’s current health statistics and their associated economic burden provide another compelling benefit for taking steps to improve the health of its residents.
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Michigan is one of the fattest states in the nation - more than 60% of Michigan adults are overweight or obese. Overweight rates among children and adolescents have more than doubled in the past 20 years. Increasing physical activity combined with healthy eating are the best ways to combat excess weight.
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Almost 25% of Michigan adults smoke. Tobacco use remains the number one cause of cardiovascular disease which is the state’s number 1 cause of death.
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Cardiovascular disease imposes a heavy economic burden on Michigan—costs associated with this disease are estimated at $12.9 billion annually.
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The costs of physical inactivity activity in Michigan are estimated at almost $9 billion annually.
Completing the Checklist is an important initial step in improving a community’s health as it helps to identify strengths to build on as well as targeting areas and possible actions for positive change.
Additional benefits include:
- A formatted feedback report issued upon completion of the Checklist that can be used for pubic relations efforts with various groups within the community;
- Recognition on the Michigan Health Tools Map (www.mihealthtools.org) for those who have completed the Checklist (see our Privacy page for details on how we share and publicize information); and
- Recognition in periodic press releases issued by the Michigan Department of Community Health and the Michigan Surgeon General’s Office.
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Eligibility
Any city, township, charter township, or village in the State of Michigan is eligible to complete the Healthy Community Checklist.
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How to Complete the Checklist
Michigan communities that wish to complete the Healthy Community Checklist begin by registering on this website.
Registration only takes a minute or two. Immediately after registration, the community has access to their Checklist along with instructions
for completion. After registration, communities can log in anytime they wish to enter data on their Checklist. (The log in box is located on the home page of this website.)
Data entry can
be done in as many data entry sessions as the community wishes.
The data entry for the online Healthy Community Checklist simply involves clicking on the appropriate response for each question.
Complete instructions for completing the Healthy Community Checklist are provided immediately after registration. The instructions are also
available to registered communities each time they log in.
Registered communities can complete as many Healthy Community Checklist assessments
as they like and are encouraged to reassess periodically to measure progress.
Upon log in, communities are routed to the Assessments & Scorecards page which displays your
community's current and past assessments. If an assessment is in progress, the page also shows the
status of that assessment- which sections are completed, partially complete or not started.
Communities can print copies of any of their assessments and answers, as well as the corresponding
scorecards.
For a preview of the Checklist (including a printable version), please see the Preview the Checklist section of this website.
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Questions
Read the Frequently Asked Questions — Most of the answers can be found there. If your questions remain unanswered after reading the Frequently Asked Questions, please contact us.
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