Health task force gets name, direction

BRADENTON — The task force charged with making Manatee County healthier has a name and a direction.

The next step is to figure out the best ways to prevent chronic disease and promote healthy lifestyles among the county’s residents.

The local Community Health Action Response Team held its second meeting Tuesday and came away with a new moniker, CHART Manatee, and consensus on the focus of the organization.

The CHART Manatee mission statement reads, “To promote healthy lifestyles for every generation in Manatee County by fostering increased physical activity, good nutrition and tobacco-free living through community education and changes in systems and policy.”

The deliberations featured a philosophical debate about whether including the word “physical” would exclude people who are disabled and whether alcohol and drug abuse should be listed alongside tobacco use.

But the end result gave the task force a guiding document for its three-year project, according to moderator Donna Keith.

“It identifies exactly what we collectively see as important aspects that we need to do in order to promote the health of the community. I think that everybody felt invested in it when we got done,” said Keith, the Manatee County Health Department’s community health nursing supervisor.

The task force was created after Manatee County became one of 40 communities in the United States to receive a $40,000 grant from the Centers for Disease Control.

The 20-member team — made up of representatives from the health department, schools, social service agencies and local businesses — will meet again May 4 to focus on areas of concentration. Up to 12 members of the task force will attend a four-day Action Institute training seminar in June in Tampa.

“I think we’re very fortunate to have received the grant and to be able to provide more education about preventing chronic disease and having a well community,” health department Administrator Bencie Fairburn said. “And it takes everyone, and it involves many different types of activities, from healthier eating, reducing tobacco use, or even better avoiding it in the first place, and just having a healthy community where people can walk and feel safe.”

The team will spend the first year and $15,000 of the grant compiling a community action plan, coming up with at least one policy, environmental or system change in each of five sectors of the community: the community at large, schools, work sites, health care and community institutions/organizations.

The next two years and the remaining $25,000 of the grant will go toward identifying and securing resources for the action plan.