Everyone deserves to live a long and healthy life in a safe environment. To ensure this, we must tackle the causes of poor health and disease risk among individuals and within our communities. Where we live, learn, work, worship and play impacts each of us and can determine our health and life expectancy. Within our communities, let’s start new conversations with our neighbors and become advocates for positive change. Working together, we can build healthier communities and eventually, the healthiest nation. But we need your help to get there.
DHD#10 staff work everyday to ensure our communities are safe and healthy. From safe drinking water to immunizations, to healthy babies and breastfeeding, to physical activity and sexual health, and more- we are public health and are here to help you live your best life.
Each day of National Public Health Week celebrates a different area of public health, check it out!
Monday- Behavioral Health
Advocate for and promote well-being. Focus on and advocate for improved access to mental and behavioral health services. Use education and training to destigmatize mental health diagnoses and encourage people experiencing mental illness to seek treatment. Insurance coverage for mental health services must be on par with physical health services.
Tuesday- Communicable Diseases
Learn about ways to prevent disease transmission. Wash your hands. Know your HIV status. Call on employers to support
and provide sick leave so sick workers can care for themselves and avoid spreading disease to others. Support comprehensive sexual health education in schools, which can reduce rates of sexually transmitted disease (as well as
teen pregnancy). Keep yourself and your families immunized against vaccine preventable diseases — and get your flu shot!
Wednesday- Environmental Health
Help to protect and maintain a healthy planet. Reduce our collective carbon emissions footprint. Transition to renewable energy sources. Protect our natural resources and use evidence-based policy to protect our air, water and food. Support environmental health efforts that monitor our communities for risks and develop health-promoting interventions. Call for
transportation planning that promotes walking, biking and public transit — it not only reduces climate-related emissions, but helps us all stay physically active.
Thursday- Injury & Violence Prevention
Learn about the effects of injury and violence on health. Support common sense gun safety laws and research into the roots and causes of gun violence. Increase funding to programs that reduce and prevent community violence. Advocate for occupational health and safety standards that keep workers safe on the job. Support policies that save those struggling with addiction from a fatal drug overdose. Many injuries are preventable with the appropriate education, policy and safety measures in place.
Friday- Ensuring the Right to Health
Advocate for everyone’s right to a healthy life. Everyone deserves an opportunity to live a life free from preventable disease and disability. The places where we live, learn, work, worship and play should promote our health, not threaten it. That’s why creating the healthiest nation requires a dogged focus on achieving health equity for all.
Help DHD#10 celebrate NPHW by following all of the action on Facebook, Instragram, & Twitter.
Find out more about National Public Health Week: www.nphw.org