Strategic Alliance for Health (SAH) Communities

CDC’s SAH communities improve community health through sustainable, innovative, and evidence-based community health promotion and chronic disease prevention interventions that promote policy, systems, and environmental changes. To do this, SAH communities focus on building local capacity to

• Institute policy, systems, and environmental changes related to promoting physical activity and nutrition and reducing tobacco use and exposure.
• Improve and increase access to quality care.
• Help eliminate racial/ethnic and socioeconomic health disparities.
• Reduce complications from and incidence of heart disease, diabetes, and obesity.

The communities funded through SAH are New York City, New York; Hamilton County–Cincinnati, Ohio; DeKalb County–Atlanta, Georgia; Dallas County, Perry County, and Sumter County, Alabama (through the Alabama Department of Public Health); Albany County, Broome County, Orange County, and Schenectady County, New York (through the New York State Department of Health); Sault Saint Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians, Michigan; and the Cherokee Nation, Oklahoma. Communities were selected to represent a mix of urban, rural, and tribal communities.

Each community will focus its efforts on a minimum of two sectors for a 5-year period: schools are a required sector for all SAH communities, and the other(s) will be selected from the community, work site, or health care sectors. Communities will work collaboratively with their key partners (including representatives from education agencies, community and faith-based organizations, businesses, and the health care sector) to develop policy, systems, and environmental change strategies that 1) promote and sustain community-based health promotion and chronic disease prevention programs and 2) help achieve the Healthy People 2010 objectives. SAH communities also will mentor other communities by developing and implementing action guides for evidence- and practice-based strategies to combat chronic diseases.

 

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