Eating Well in Wayne County

About the Program

Category: Health (Best in Category)

Year: 2011

In these tough economic times, the unemployment and poverty on the rise, community need is greater than ever before. With shrinking budgets and staff shortages, organizations are challenged to find creative new ways to deliver services in a cost effective, yet efficient manner. The Wayne County Department of Public Health (WCDPH) Eating well in Wayne county program is innovative in that it involves the local county health department providing leadership and capacity to uniquely leverage the power of community partnerships to improve health. This has allowed the maximum use of scarce resources to provide a stronger broadened network of nutrition services to the 1.8 million residents of Wayne County (excluding Detroit). WCDPH created a strategic action plan to implement a project that builds a sound nutrition infrastructure system linking several disconnected services to create the Eating Well in Wayne County program. This program’s purpose is to reduce nutrition-related risk factors for chronic disease by establishing collaborative partnerships to conduct community assessments to determine need and evaluate the program’s impact, create and influence local policy, improve access to healthy nutrition sources, and improve Wayne County population’s knowledge and behaviors related to making healthier food choices.