Thank you for adding your voice

Community Health Boards help build healthier communities by promoting and supporting action on initiatives that make a difference for the health and wellness of residents.

Community Health Boards ( CHB) in the Western Zone recently asked you to help identify priorities for your community by telling us about the barriers, outside of health service delivery, that prevent us from being healthy as individuals, as families and as a community. You responded by filling out surveys and participating in focus groups and community conversations. We thank you for adding your voice for a healthy community!

We received over 3,000 comments, from which we identified four priority areas:

Opportunities for connection and inclusion in supportive community environments;

Availability and access to recreation, healthy living and wellness programs;

Working together to improve availability and access to sufficient quantity of safe, affordable and nutritious food;

Working together on issues of safe, affordable, appropriate housing.

You also provided more than 1,000 comments about health service delivery, which we shared with Nova Scotia Health Authority’s primary health-care team. You can learn more about how Primary Health Care is responding at “Shaping Our System Together”.

Over the next number of months, the CHB health plan- ning team will be diving more deeply into your issues and concerns around community health and inviting you to continue the conversation by suggesting ways to improve our communities and the outcomes that you would like to see.

Together, we will work to create health promotion partnerships and overcome barriers for all community members to equitably attain optimal wellness – socially, emotionally, and physically.

Stay informed and learn more at “Engage4Health - Your Voice for a Health Community” or contact us at westernCHBs@ nshealth.ca. Heather Morse, Western Zone CHB health planning team