Raising Health in Communities
Valley West Community Hospital
Valley West Community Hospital in Sandwich, Illinois has initiated its own Healthy Monday program. The hospital offers the Healthy Monday tips and recipes on their website each week. They also provide low cost or free screenings and health programs on Monday, including blood pressure clinics, parenting and smoke cessation classes, and illness support groups.
Healthy Monday Northern Kentucky
Healthy Monday NKY is an enormous effort by local health leaders in Northern Kentucky to focus area health programming around a single mission and day. Each week residents are given a Healthy Monday tip and encouraged to walk one of numerous Monday Miles routes in the community. Mayor Bowman, a major proponent of the initiative, hopes that Healthy Monday activities in schools, such as the Monday Mile and Meatless Monday, will help curb obesity rates in the community and improve overall health.
The initiative is promoted through local newspapers, business journals and a regional website, healthymondaynky.org. They also have a TV spot with local news anchor Liz Bonis and their own Twitter, HealthyMondayNKY.
Shasta County, CA
Farmers’ markets, gardening workshops, healthy cooking demonstrations, walking groups, fitness programs, play-time for kids and student health plans…there’s nothing Shasta County won’t offer to keep its residents healthy! Organized under the Healthy Monday umbrella, these multi-faceted programs are teaching an entire community that, together, they CAN live healthy.
American Heart Association
Search Your Heart Sunday, Go Healthy Monday
In 2004 an American Heart Association affiliate added a weekly compliance trigger to the existing “Search Your Heart Sunday” program, conceived to fight heart disease and stroke in communities of color.
Church leaders committed to helping their congregations evaluate the past week’s health behaviors on Sunday, so they could make positive changes on Monday. To help them reach out to congregations, leaders received weekly health messages tailored for Sunday sermons, follow-up church bulletin features and a bank of easy-to-make, heart healthy recipes.
Tactics were developed on a church-by-church basis, including roving health ambassadors, CPR training, blood pressure screening, cooking demonstrations and healthy tip calendars. Michael Weamer, Affiliate Executive Vice President, reports, “Our program “Search Your Heart Sunday” has definitely been strengthened by adding the action-based ‘Go Healthy Monday’ component.
