MAY 2009
Ways to Age Well

The North Carolina Roadmap for Healthy Aging

By Richard Shank

The University of North Carolina Institute on Aging recently published a roadmap designed to promote healthy aging throughout the state. This roadmap could serve as an important model for other communities attempting to tackle the concept of healthy aging at the local, state, and national levels.

The healthy aging roadmap was developed to provide community and health care providers interested in health promotion with enough information to set-up and run a successful program in their location. The result is a step-by-step guide that helps community organizations assess the needs of their community and the appropriate programs to meet them, as well as providing tips to set-up and establish partnerships to implement the programs.

There are numerous health promotion programs available for community use, ranging from simple exercise classes and local support groups to nationally recognized, evidence-based health promotion programs (EBHP) which require trained instructors and the purchase of resources.

This roadmap provides help with starting an EBHP within the community, but is not limited to this resource. Instead, the roadmap can be followed to establish new programs or to adopt existing programs that already match the resources available in the community.

The roadmap has four sections:

  1. Program Implementation – details how to establish an EBHP program in the community
  2. Database Assessment Tools – specific to North Carolina, however it provides helpful hints for anyone looking to identify and access specific health information in the local community
  3. Evidence-Based Health Promotion Programs and Master Trainers – provides an index of all EBHPs operating in North Carolina
  4. County Profiles – presents a snapshot of aging for each county in North Carolina and provides examples of health promotion programs offered throughout the state

Roadmaps such as this one are becoming increasingly important as communities seek to adapt to the needs of their rapidly aging citizenry.

For more information, visit: http://www.aging.unc.edu

 

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