Community Health: A Critical Approach to Addressing Chronic Diseases

Many public health solutions to chronic diseases involve individual lifestyle choices: eating more healthfully, increasing physical activity, and quitting smoking. This approach neglects barriers in the community environment that make modifying unhealthy behaviors challenging. Addressing environmental barriers is an essential strategy to supporting behavioral changes. Changing community environments that contribute to unhealthy behaviors can improve community health. Community indicator reports can be used to strengthen community environments for optimum health. The reports are comprehensive evaluations of community well-being that reflect community factors that influence health. Prevention Institute studied community indicator reports for The California Endowment and produced Good Health Counts: A 21st Century Approach to Health and Community for California. This commentary on that document highlights recommendations for the use of community indicator reports.