The Community Health Team at AppHealthCare works with local stakeholders to identify, assess and address public health. We focus on community health outcomes by cultivating partnerships to strengthen public health through evidence-based prevention, intervention, systems level change and resiliency building.
We envision a community where everyone has an equal opportunity to live healthy and productive lives. We work toward this vision in partnership with schools, community and faith leaders, health care professionals, state partners and other local stakeholders to identify health priorities and implement evidence-based strategies to address them. The current public health priorities are:
Alleghany County priorities:
- Mental / Behavioral Health
- Family and Social Support
- Substance use and misuse prevention
Ashe County priorities:
- Mental / Behavioral Health
- Substance use and misuse prevention
- Housing
Watauga County priorities:
- Mental / Behavioral Health
- Family and Social Support
- Housing
Our Community Health programs Include:
The Northwest Tobacco Prevention Coalition is an educational effort to increase awareness of the health hazards of tobacco use and secondhand smoke and to promote policies that protect the public from the negative consequences of tobacco use.
Triple P is designed to give parents the skills they need to raise confident healthy children and teenagers and to build stronger family bonds. Triple P doesn’t tell people how to parent. Rather, it gives parents simple and practical strategies they can adapt to suit their own values, beliefs and needs.
Active Routes to School is a NC Safe Routes to School Project supported by a partnership between the NC Department of Transportation and the NC Division of Public Health. Through this project there are ten Active Routes to School project coordinators working across North Carolina to make it easier for elementary and middle school students to safely walk and bike to and AT school. See here for more information
Through a collective impact framework, the MCH initiative works to decrease infant mortality, improve birth outcomes and improve health status of children ages zero to five years.
- School health improvement
The “Whole School, Whole Community, Whole Child” model aims to strengthen a unified approach by all community partners to learning and health. Schools, health agencies, parents, and communities are working toward a common goal of supporting the health and academic achievement of students.
- Project Lazarus
Through collaboration with law enforcement, medical practices and pharmacies, we promote and implement strategies to take prescription drugs correctly, store securely, dispose properly, and never share.
Current use of e-cigarettes among high schoolers in North Carolina increased 894% between 2011-2017. Overall tobacco use rates among youth are higher in Western North Carolina than the state at 31.7% and 28.8% respectively. Additionally, youth in Western North Carolina face many temptations to engage in tobacco use that may not exist for their peers across the state and nation. Given their rural Appalachia location and ingrained culture of tobacco as a means for survival and income, youth have inherently grown up in an environment that is accepting of tobacco use. Preventing youth from initiating tobacco use while also educating those who have already begun presents unique challenges in creating comprehensive tobacco control efforts for youth in Western North Carolina. For these reasons we have collaborated with fellow tobacco control partners across the region to develop a multi-faceted strategy that encompasses evidence-based curriculums and youth advocacy work that are effective in this specific population.
