Healthy Communitites

FDOH-Lee recognizes the value in bringing organizations together on shared goals to improve the health of people in Lee County. Through the Healthy Communities program, we work with community partners to prevent chronic diseases from continuing to grow in our area. We are taking steps to bring change to the places and organizations that touch people’s lives every day—schools, worksites, health care sites, and other community settings.

Chronic Disease Prevention Programs

Chronic diseases are defined broadly as conditions that last one year or more and that require ongoing medical attention or limit activities of daily living or both. Chronic diseases such as heart disease, cancer, and diabetes are the leading causes of death and disability in the United States.

Some of the prevention programs available for Lee County residents include:

• Insulin and Epilepsy Prescription Assistance programs at DOH-Lee
• Breast and Cervical Cancer Early Detection program at DOH-Lee
• Diabetes Prevention program at Lee Health
• Diabetes Self-Management and Education program at Lee Health
• Chronic Disease Prevention provides information of all statewide programs

Early Care and Education (ECE) and School Settings

FDOH-Lee has partnered with Go NAPSACC, Florida’s HEROs and the School District of Lee County to encourage and support healthy nutrition and physical activity in early education and school settings.

Go Nutrition and Physical Activity Self-Assessment for Child Care (Go NAPSACC) is an online tool that helps childcare programs nationwide do more to support children’s healthy eating and physical activity habits for children 0 to 5 years old.

Go Nutrition and Physical Activity Self-Assessment for Child Care (Go NAPSACC) is an online tool that helps childcare programs nationwide do more to support children’s healthy eating and physical activity habits for children 0 to 5 years old.

Participating programs receive:

• Unlimited access to Go NAPSACC’s online planning tools and high-quality educational materials.
• Support from Department of Health in Lee County personnel to achieve goals related to the program.

Individual participants receive:

• Free CEU credits for completing trainings focused on healthy eating and physical activity best practices.
• Support to apply for a $500-$1000 Kaplan grant through the FL Healthy Environments for Reducing Obesity (Florida HEROs) ECE Recognition Program.

For more information visit: https://gonapsacc.org

Florida’s HEROs

Florida’s HEROs ECE Recognition Program is a voluntary recognition program open to all early care and education centers in Florida that are licensed by the Florida Department of Children and Families.

The goal of the recognition is for ECE providers to take proactive, voluntary steps to improve their program’s practices and policies related to encouraging healthy behaviors among the children and families they serve.

The program honors ECE centers for integrating the following best practices:

• Provide healthy food
• Offer healthy beverages
• Support breastfeeding
• Increase physical activity, and
• Limit screen time

Join other ECE providers across Florida! https://eces4healthykids.org/recognition/

Healthy Living Collaboration works to improve overall health and increase food security for School District of Lee County students and families.

 Through our teamwork, we have brought together more community partners to expand these efforts and create sustainable strategic plans.

• Students are spending more time outside in the soil, school gardens are flourishing, more students are being exposed to local produce and tasting it through their school cafeterias.
• In the 2022-23 school year, the school gardens have harvested 4,398 pounds of produce.

To learn more about the program, its partners and current projects visit:

https://www.leeschools.net.

Healthy Schools Assessment

DOH-Lee works with the School District of Lee County to complete the Healthy Schools Assessment. This assessment is a subset of questions from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's School Health Index that allows schools and districts to evaluate their health policies and programs in the areas of:

• Policy & Environment,
• Nutrition Services,
• Smart Snacks, Health & Physical Education,
• Physical Activity, and
• Employee Wellness.

The Alliance for a Healthier Generation (Healthier Generation) Healthy Schools Framework of Best Practices identifies specific criteria for a healthy school environment and serves as a guide for policy and practice change.

To learn more about the program visit https://www.healthiergeneration.org/take-action/schools.

Community Settings

For information about how FDOH-Lee is working with the community to prevent illness, injury and death related to environmental factors visit our PACE-EH webpage.

Worksite Wellness

The CDC Worksite Health ScoreCard is a tool to help employers assess whether they have implemented evidence-based health promotion activities in the workplace to prevent chronic conditions such as  heart disease, stroke, and related conditions such as hypertension, diabetes, and obesity.

It provides guidance on key evidence-based strategies that employers can put in place to promote a healthy workforce, increase productivity, and reduce the risk and associated cost of poor employee health.

The Florida Department of Health in Lee County completes this scorecard each year and encourages other organizations to do the same. 

Visit  https://nccd.cdc.gov/DPH_WHSC/HealthScorecard/Home.aspx to learn more.