“To be successful, we need the full engagement of regional authorities to create the new organizational structure and programs that will be the basis of an effective healthy living system that is separate from but linked to our health care system” – Dr. Gerry Karr

Local government leaders meet Friday in Oliver to find out what role they chose to play in the “Healthy Living” movement.

The Okanagan Similkameen Healthy Living Coalition is a community-driven umbrella organization that brings together regional governance and community resources for healthy living to design and implement integrated, collaborative and innovative programs for healthy living with a focus on children, youth and vulnerable populations. We will implement a 5-year pilot project aimed at developing a model for other communities. Our programs will engage, enable and support our people to achieve the rewards of a healthy lifestyle and to adopt healthy living as a community norm.

This is important because the prevalence of several chronic diseases directly attributable to unhealthy lifestyles continues to increase despite the many existing primary prevention and health promotion strategies. This upward trend is a major contributor to the growth in health care spending as a proportion of our provincial budget and threatens the sustainability of our health care system. We need to do things differently if we want to reverse the trend.

A Coalition of stakeholders determined to make a difference can create the change in strategies and programs that will have a wide reach, successfully achieving cultural change in our communities that makes healthy lifestyle the community norm. At the same time the Coalition’s programs will reach, engage and support individuals in target populations to set and achieve personal lifestyle goals and experience the reward of healthy living. The strength of the Coalition will enable it to obtain funding to support its work from senior governments and corporate foundations.

To be successful, we need the full engagement of regional authorities to create the new organizational structure and programs that will be the basis of an effective healthy living system that is separate from but linked to our health care system. At the end of our 5-year pilot project we will have a working model that can be adapted to other community settings and we will see substantial improvement in indicators of lifestyle health for our region.

For more information on the Okanagan Similkameen Healthy Living Coalition, please contact:
Dr. Gerry Karr gkarr@telus.net