TULSA, OK – [April 3, 2018] – National Public Health Week 2018 is taking place the first week of April. The Tulsa Health Department hopes the community will join them in engaging all Tulsa County residents in a conversation about the role everyone can play to put good health within everyone’s reach. Where we live, learn, work, worship and play impacts our health and our opportunity to ward off disease and injury. This year’s theme for NPHW 2018 is “Changing Our Future Together.”
Each day of NPHW 2018, THD will focus on a different public health topic that’s critical to creating the healthiest nation. The goal is to promote awareness and spark new conversations to engage stakeholders and leaders in to understand what public health offers to their community. This will be an opportunity to celebrate, recognize and honor the contributions of Tulsa County’s public health workers.
The daily themes include: Monday – Behavioral Health; Tuesday – Communicable Diseases; Wednesday – Environmental Health; Thursday – Injury and Violence Prevention; and Friday – Ensuring the Right to Health.
To ensure everyone has a chance at a long and healthy life, THD believes in tackling the underlying causes of poor health and disease risk. Those causes are rooted in how and where we live, learn, work and play. During NPHW 2018, Generation Public Health is rallying around a goal of making the U.S. the Healthiest Nation in One Generation — by 2030. Tulsa Health Department has also set an audacious goal to make Tulsa the healthiest county in the country. And we want to be #1 in 10 years. This bold vision is the driving force behind our daily efforts to improve health and well-being.
“Our agency helps educate and engage Tulsa County residents in the movement to create a healthier community for ourselves and the generations to come,” said Tulsa Health Department Executive Director Dr. Bruce Dart. “Efforts like the Community Health Improvement Plan help showcase the value of supporting prevention and the role that local agencies, organizations and practitioners play in making prevention possible. We all have a role in making Tulsa the healthiest community, and it starts with each of us taking the simple preventative steps that lead to better health.”
Please join our efforts to advocate ways THD is here to serve the nearly 640,000 Tulsa County residents in improving overall health and well-being for all. For more information, visit tulsa-health.org.
Tulsa Health Department
Since its establishment in 1950, the Tulsa Health Department serves as the primary public health agency to more than 600,000 Tulsa County residents, including 13 municipalities and four unincorporated areas. The agency is one of two autonomous local health departments in Oklahoma, with statutory public health jurisdiction throughout Tulsa County and the City of Tulsa. THD’s mission is to improve the health and well-being of all Tulsa County residents, in order to make Tulsa County the healthiest county in the country. THD was among the first health departments in the U.S. to receive national accreditation through the Public Health Accreditation Board. For more information, please visit www.tulsa-health.org.
National Public Health Week
National Public Health Week is an initiative of American Public Health Association. A 501(c)(3) organization, APHA are champions for the health of all people and all communities. They strengthen the public health profession by speaking out for public health issues and policies backed by science. They attribute they are the only organization that influences federal policy, has a nearly 150-year perspective and brings together members from all fields of public health. APHA publishes the American Journal of Public Health and The Nation’s Health newspaper. Visit apha.org to learn more.
Generation Public Health
In the U.S., where you live, your income, education, race and access to health care mean as much as a 15-year difference in how long you will live. Another national movement of American Public Health Association, Generation Public Health is working to ensure conditions where everyone has the opportunity to healthy. Their studies show that even wealthy, highly educated Americans with access to quality care suffer a health disadvantage to peers in other high-income countries. Their vision is to create the healthiest nation in one generation.
