Local governments, organizations and county agencies are working together to improve the health of the nearly 1.2 million people who live in Allegheny County.
The Allegheny County Health Department’s (ACHD) 2023-27 Plan for a Healthier Allegheny, a comprehensive, community-based initiative, is based on a community health assessment that began in 2019. The plan was created under the guidance of Dr. Debra L. Bogen, the former ACHD director who is now the acting secretary of health for Pennsylvania.
The plan was developed by engaging thousands of residents and organizations through surveys and community sessions.
The overarching goal of the five-year plan is “to ensure that Allegheny County residents live healthy lives as demonstrated by their physical and behavioral health and the environments in which they live, learn, work and play.”
The plan is guided by eight goals, 37 objectives and 59 metrics of success.
“We are fortunate that Allegheny County is now ranked among the healthiest counties in Pennsylvania by the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute, but we know that we can do even better,” County Executive Rich Fitzgerald said in a press release.
The Health Department emphasizes that this is a collaborative plan.
“This is a community guide that everybody looks at,” says Dr. Barbara Nightingale, deputy director of clinical services for the ACHD. “It’s not the end-all-be-all. Many organizations may look to this for some ideas, but they have their own metrics that they’re measuring. So these are some things that we as the county can actually measure ourselves.”
The goals include encouraging people of all ages to engage in behaviors that promote physical health and reduce the risk of chronic diseases, obtain medical and dental care, and decrease disparities in life expectancy and chronic diseases across the county.
The Health Department cites equity as one of the driving forces of the plan. Goal 3 focuses on reducing the racial disparities in life expectancy and chronic diseases in Allegheny County. According to the 2022 community health assessment, the average life expectancy of Black residents is 71.4, whereas white residents are expected to live six and a half years longer.
Strategies to combat this inequity include increasing community-based health screenings and education for diseases like diabetes, hypertension and cancer. The plan also lists strategies like supporting tobacco use reduction programs, expanding regional transportation, and increasing the number of healthcare providers of color.
Behavioral health goals include better access to behavioral health services and substance use disorders and encouraging people to participate in programs and activities that support mental health and well-being. Strategies include promoting access to mental health and substance use treatment utilizing technology-supported programs and conducting safe administration workshops on Narcan, a life-saving medicine that can stop a drug overdose.
Environmental goals include stable and safe housing, decreasing violence in the home and in communities and creating community climate resiliency. Strategies include helping local governments with emergency preparedness and sustainability practices and improving air quality monitoring.
“Climate resiliency really overlaps with physical health and behavioral health,” says Dr. Geoffrey Rabinowitz, the county’s deputy director for environmental health. “If there’s a climate-driven event that affects roadways and highway access, what is that going to do for public safety and access to healthy food?”
The health department emphasized the need for community engagement to fully implement the plan.
“The vast majority of this work doesn’t come directly from the health department,” Nightingale says. “We help coordinate — we can make linkages, we can help with measuring data and objectives. We need to get out into the community, get people working on the goals that they can help with their specific organization or individuals themselves.”
“We can start to drive our resources collectively as a county towards these goals,” says Patrick Dowd, ACHD acting director. “How do we make it easier for people to access green space to be physically active? How do we make it easier for people to access high-quality food?”
Partnerships are key for the plan to work, according to the health department.
“We’ve listed some partners for every broad goal area,” Dowd says. “Everybody from economic development to the health department, to human services, to the parks, they all have a role to play and they’re all contributing pretty mightily.”