The Alabama Department of Public Health’s Healthy Communities Branch received a five-year cooperative agreement from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) to provide technical assistance, training, and consultation to Alabama communities on promoting healthy lifestyles and preventing chronic disease through policy, systems, and environmental changes.  Communities may contact the state to receive training, technical assistance, or consultation regarding policy, systems, and environmental changes to help make their community healthier.

CDC’s Healthy Communities Program is engaging communities and mobilizing national networks to focus on chronic disease prevention.  Communities are working to change the places and organizations that touch people’s lives every day including schools, work sites, health care sites, and other community settings in an effort to turn the tide on the national epidemic of chronic diseases.

Local communities will benefit because this collaboration forges a direct relationship between them and state Health Department staff and provides an additional avenue for technical support, communication, and training.  Communities who work with states will learn more about the state’s priority objectives for preventing chronic diseases.

Today, chronic diseases affect almost 50% of Americans and account for seven of the ten leading causes of death in the United States.  Chronic diseases and conditions such as heart disease, stroke, diabetes, cancer, obesity, and arthritis cause suffering and limitations to daily functioning.  Preventable health-risk factors such as tobacco use and exposure, insufficient physical activity, and poor nutrition contribute greatly to the development and severity of many chronic diseases. 

Please visit the CDC's site to learn more about how the Healthy Communities Program is helping to prevent chronic diseases by working to reduce health-risk factors and attain health equity.