CDC Program Works Toward Healthy Communities

Through CDC's Healthy Communities Program, community members can minimize chronic diseases by working to reduce health risk factors and to attain health equity. Through National Networks for Community Change, the program connects numerous local and national organizations to activate and spread changes that support good health across the U.S. The program’s Action Institutes and Training facilitate community action by training local leaders on how to make health-related policy, systems and environmental changes. Using the Community Health Assessment and Group Evaluation (CHANGE) tool, coalitions can identify community strengths, as well as areas for improvements. The CHANGE tool ultimately helps map out a course for health improvement by creating policy strategies to make sustainable changes in a community. Since 2003, the Healthy Communities Program, which was formerly known as the Steps Program, has made a deep investment in chronic disease prevention at the local level. Research shows that communities have responded with an outpouring of energy and ideas, making the necessary changes to reverse trends in the chronic disease burden.