Baton Rouge’s Mayor’s Healthy City Initiative: To Communicate, Collaborate, Coordinate

By Sunanna Chand, Community Outreach Coordinator, Office of Mayor-President Melvin L. “Kip” Holden

East Baton Rouge (City-Parish population 441, 481) is fortunate to have a myriad of strong health organizations working to increase healthy eating and active lifestyle choices in our community. Baton Rouge’s Mayor’s Healthy City Initiative (MHCI) identifies these organizations and the public services they provide in order to coordinate their efforts and facilitate greater social impact through collaborative work.  Unified, we can do more to build our community’s commitment to better health.

Mayor-President Melvin L. “Kip” Holden started the MHCI in 2008, as he strongly believes that for Baton Rouge to be a great city, it needs to be a healthy city.  As Mayor Holden has said, “All of us know someone who is obese. My mother died of a heart attack, and she was only 51 years old. It would not be an exaggeration to say this is a matter of life and death.”

Mayor Holden convened a small initial group of local stakeholders, who determined that Baton Rouge already has many organizations working to better public health in our communities, and that there was not a need for another programmatic entity.  What we noticed, however, was that organizations were working in silos, duplicating efforts, and struggling to fund and sustain programs in isolation.

Thus began the function of the MHCI: to foster collaboration, coordination, and communication.  Since this small initial meeting, 58 local organizations (and counting) committed to health and wellness, now partner under the umbrella of the Mayor’s Healthy City Initiative and work together to accelerate positive population health outcomes. In 2010 the MHCI became a 501 (c)(3) nonprofit organization to ensure organizational sustainability. Baton Rouge is a Let’s Move! Cities, Towns, and Counties participant, committed to the five goals of LMCTC, continuously working to increase its effectiveness in the five goal areas.

This kind of collaboration and the expedited results it produces in Baton Rouge are needed immensely, as evidenced through data compiled in our 2011 Community Health Needs Assessment (CHNA).  From the CHNA, the MHCI coalition of community organizations formed six City-Parish priorities on which we would focus together:  Healthy Eating, Active Lifestyles, HIV/STD Prevention and Awareness, Mental Health, Obesity, and ER Utilization. The CHNA also identified the zip codes in our community that are particularly vulnerable and uses that data to target population health interventions, like the Fresh Beginnings Grant Project, which leverages high-impact partnerships to promote food access, healthy eating, and active lifestyles in zip codes 70807, 70802, and 70805.

In August 2012, the Fresh Beginnings Project, developed through the MHCI, was awarded $1 million from the Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Louisiana Foundation’s Challenge for a Healthier Louisiana Grant Program. It has allowed for a Mobile Farmers Market, Healthy Corner Store Initiative, Food Access Policy Commission, and increased physical activity and health education in schools.  BREC (Baton Rouge Recreation and Park Commission) was also awarded a $1 million grant to fund trails and provide a Mobile Recreation Unit—BREC on the GEAUX—in “play deserts” without safe, reliable access to recreation for children.  Baton Rouge received a Gold Medal in LMCTC Goal V: Active Kids at Play, and is “Going Beyond Gold” by adding this innovative activity source to its already impressive network of 184 community parks. Bike facilities and paths in East Baton Rouge Parish have been expanded from 23.3 miles in 2008 to over 63 miles.

Baton Rouge’s Bronze Medal in LMCTC Goal III: Smart Servings for Students is due to our wonderful East Baton Rouge Parish School System’s Nutrition Department and the adoption of the East Baton Rouge Parish School System (EBRPSS) Wellness Policy. 70 East Baton Rouge teachers participated in a new wellness training program that included fun, tangible ways to meet the new health and wellness guidelines outlined in the 2011 East Baton Rouge Parish School Board’s Wellness Policy through engaging demos.  The EBRPSS is also helping Baton Rouge medal in LMCTC Goal II: My Plate, Your Place by helping integrate the 5-2-1-0 + 10 message and curriculum into elementary PE classrooms.

We in Baton Rouge are proud of our commitment to cross-sector collaborative work to leverage community resources, our track record of quality population health accomplishments, and our use of data to continuously increase our effectiveness.  For further information please visit our website, www.HealthyBR.com, our Facebook and Twitter pages, or contact Andy Allen, Community Outreach Coordinator, Office of Mayor-President Kip Holden at Aallen@brgov.com.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

• NLC, Let’s Move!, and Healthy BR
• Baton Rouge’s LMCTC Community Profile Page
• Community Health Needs Assessment (2011)
• Food Access Policy Commission initial presentation
• Fresh Beginnings Overview
• 2013 Mayor’s Healthy City Initiative Annual Report
• 5-2-1-0 + 10 Children’s Health Message:  Free Logos and Community Resources
• Mayor’s Healthy City-Parish Initiative Structure and Partner Organizations