Health Promotion Staff provide data and surveillance, communication and technical assistance to engage community partners in creating the right mix of strategies that will help us create greater improvements in our community’s health.
Health Promotion Programs
The Health Promotion staff offers technical assistance and support to agency programs and targeted community partners in the following areas:
- Community engagement
- Data & Surveillance
- Communications & Media
Community Engagement: Through the process of a Community Health Assessment in 2010, our community health leaders selected six priority health issues. Our community and partners will collectively focus our resources to improve health outcomes in each of these areas by 2014.
The health priorities are:
- Promote healthy weights through healthy living
- Improve women’s health during childbearing years
- Improve children’s health outcomes through a focus on family support and education
- Increase readiness of all students to learn and succeed in school
- Access to and continuity of a mental health home
- Access to and continuity of a primary care home
Health Promotion Staff work with community partners around the identified health priorities to:
- Identify the strategies that will have the greatest impact on priority health issues and where we have sufficient resources in place and where we need more.
- Determine the outcomes we monitor as a community and align measures that will help us evaluate progress toward improving the outcomes.
- Improve the way community partners work together to create the greatest impact.
Resources available online:
To find out more about community priorities and opportunities to network with others around common goals, contact Gaylen Ehrlichman at (828) 250-5045 or email Gaylen.Ehrlichman@buncombecounty.org
Data & Surveillance: What we measure helps us improve where and how we focus our work to improve health. Creating a clear picture of our health outcomes and indicators helps us monitor improvements to understand if what we are currently doing is leading to the changes we want to see.
Health Promotion staff offers the following support and technical assistance:
- Define the health outcomes our community is striving to achieve
- Make health data more available and easier to understand
- Identify data we need but don’t have and work with partners to gather data that will help measure the impact our community is having on priority health issues
Resources available online:
To request data, or assistance with data and developing outcome measures, contact Gaylen Ehrlichman at (828) 250-5045 or email Gaylen.Ehrlichman@buncombecounty.org
Communications & Media: Our health promotion staff supports communication with partners and publishes health information, reports and news releases that help the public and our partners stay informed about emerging health issues, disaster & health preparedness and new research findings, trainings and community initiatives.
We make it a priority to partner with local media to get people connected to the health facts, stories and resources they need and want to know about. Media should call our dedicated Media Phone number: (828) 775-1321 to request help with health facts, spokespersons and resources.
Helpful links to find information about:
United Way's 211
For a list of other programs & services in our community, please use the 2-1-1 Database by clicking on the following link: United Way's 2-1-1
To make an appointment
To learn more about any of our services or to request assistance please call (828) 250-5045
How are services paid for?
The Health Promotion services are paid for by various sources including: local county government, grants and contracts from local, state and federal agencies and organizations.