A MESSAGE FROM THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

There are few challenges greater than providing individuals and families with the knowledge, tools and resources they need to improve their health and reduce their risk for obesity and chronic disease. On the one hand, it is important for people to know what they need to do. Awareness is the easy part. But, awareness alone seldom leads to a sustained change in an individual’s healthy habits. The gap between awareness and action is where Healthy Tarrant County Collaboration is focusing its efforts.

The gap between awareness and action is shaped by many forces, some of which people can control directly, and others that end up controlling them.For many years too much emphasis has been placed on educating people on what they need to do, without addressing the challenges that keep people from implementing the knowledge and skills that they acquire through education. For that reason, Healthy Tarrant County Collaboration is placing a priority on building policy, systems, and environmental strategies into community health improvement plans.

Healthy Tarrant County Collaboration helps our hospitals, public health department, and universities collaborate across their respective disciplines on projects aimed at helping Tarrant County residents become healthier.

We use the Spectrum of Prevention framework to identify the existing multi-faceted range of activities in our community as well as to identify the gaps. This helps to guide our efforts to where we can make the greatest impact, and also to reduce chances of duplicating the work of others.

Our current areas of focus include piloting and implementing healthy retail policies and strategies to increase access to healthier foods in a large Tarrant County healthy foods priority area. More about our current initiatives is available in the Our Work section of this website.

I invite you to join us in our quest. Each person that volunteers, joins and learns about Healthy Tarrant County Collaboration and our work contributes to our mission. Please feel free to contact me should you have any questions.

Linda Fulmer
Executive Director