Introduction to Get Healthy Idaho

The Idaho Division of Public Health is responsible for conducting a statewide health assessment every five years. In 2020, the division conducted a collaborative process identifying the state’s top health priorities (diabetes, obesity, unintentional injury, and behavioral health) and developed a five-year health improvement plan to address them. This assessment and accompanying plan is known as Get Healthy Idaho: Building Healthy and Resilient Communities.

SOCIAL DETERMINANTS OF HEALTH

Get Healthy Idaho was designed to impact the root causes of poor health with a focus on placed-based, community-led transformation. As much as 80 percent of what makes us healthy is determined by factors outside of clinic walls, such as access to affordable housing, safe neighborhoods, nutritious foods, livable incomes, and quality educational opportunities. To improve health outcomes, lower healthcare costs, reduce health disparities and improve health equity, the division, through Get Healthy Idaho, is shifting the way federal and state funds are leveraged and invested in communities to address the social determinants of health.

STRATEGIES

To achieve a vision of healthy people living and thriving in safe, healthy, and resilient communities, Get Healthy Idaho's strategy includes:

What Gose Inot Your Health? Socioeconomic factors, physical environment, health behaviors and health care all go into your overall health.

Source: Institute for Clinical Systems Improvement, Going Beyond Clinical Walls: Solving Complex Problems (2014)

Identifying high-priority communities with data.
Cultivating partnerships and capacity.
Empowering a community-led approach.
Investing alongside partners in upstream approaches that impact the social determinants of health.

Get Healthy Idaho has broadened the scope and flexibility of the department’s operations and funding structure by focusing on a few high-priority communities at a time with deep significant investments for long-lasting impact. By using local data more effectively, this model is supporting place-based health initiatives in Elmore and Bannock Counties to increase healthy opportunities identified and driven by the local community.