"Healthy Waltham" is a community health initiative sponsored by Mount Auburn Hospital and facilitated by The Regional Center for Healthy Communities. The initiative is a community-wide strategic planning process for improving community health. It is a collaborative effort in which all aspects of the community are invited to participate, e.g. parents, schools, government, health and human services, public safety, places of worship businesses, coalitions, youth and others. The coalition was formed to address the community's health needs, and strives to develop and sustain local leadership. It represents a mobilized constituency to advocate for on-going community health improvements based on data and desire (what the community wants.)

• Healthy Waltham
• Healthy Waltham history
• Healthy Waltham brochure
• National Association of County and City Health Organizations

The process is based on a model published by the Center for Disease Control (CDC) called: "MAPP--Mobilizing for Action through Planning and Partnership. (website) ".

The process includes:

• community outreach, leadership and partnership development
• formation of a coalition to research and act on health needs
• community strengths and "forces of change" assessment
• community health status assessment (chronic disease status, risk factor data, etc.)
• community quality of life assessment (youth and economic opportunities, safe neighborhoods, community values, etc.)
• a visioning process
• development of community-wide health indicators
• prioritization of needs and an action plan

Support from Mount Auburn includes: technical assistance from the Regional Center for Healthy Communities, potential mini grant opportunities, resource development

Benefits to Waltham

• a long-term, planned investment in a healthy community
• sustained, active local leadership willing to advocate for health issues
• a published report of priority health needs
• a unified vision for a healthy community
• indicators for a healthy community that all organizations can strive to achieve, e.g. safe affordable housing, access to health care, etc.