Both Millcreek and West Valley City were saluted by Get Healthy Utah at the nonprofit’s ninth annual stakeholder retreat held Oct. 4 in West Jordan. West Valley City was presented an award for its pilot program to increase awareness of how a city’s policy affects health.

Alysia Ducuara, executive director for Get Healthy Utah, praised both cities along with Manti City for efforts to help build a culture of health across the state. The communities received grants from GHU for the pilot programs.

Representatives from both Salt Lake Valley cities conducted a panel titled “Health in All Policies,” emphasizing the need to have city leaders’ buy-in to the healthy community concept.

Kiana Dipko, Promise Health coordinator for Millcreek, said creating a program for her city presented “a unique opportunity to work with our planners as they were updating the land use code and some of our bylaws.” She stressed the importance of that connection within the community.

“Millcreek City has some unusual borders,” she said. “We stretch from the east bench across to the westside of the valley, and that means different social-economic groups. So we’ve had to create a plan that takes into account those lifestyle differences but remains equal in terms of our messages.”

Students from the University of Utah performed a walkability audit, garnering feedback from residents about their needs and incorporating environmental factors and accessibility to healthy food choices for residents. 

“We found places where sidewalks were cracked or uneven, making it difficult for those in wheelchairs, or areas with few trees that can assist some in walking,” Dipko said. “We used that to formulate a health impact assessment to begin working on policies.”

The Healthy West Valley Committee was created last March, and leaders Alex Kidd and Kevin Nyugen both spoke on the panel.

Kidd said they have followed a process in organizing programs that includes brainstorming, chatting as a committee with residents, then taking information to city staff members.

“We want to have a benefit across the city,” she said. “We created a checklist, asking how healthy goals and programs are achieved. We refined it, made it manageable, then set up a staff training program. Over a few weeks, we moved that message up to the city council.”

Nyugen, who serves as chair for the committee, said one key was the city’s proclamation for Healthy West Valley, establishing it as an official community committee.

“It means the city recognizes the impact policies have on citizen health,” he said. “It holds itself accountable. We bought a city official onto the committee. We created a health lens checklist to see how we’re doing and looked at what policies and practices need to be changed and took a collaborative approach in making those changes.”

All panelists agreed that speaking in layman’s terms—taking medical words and phrases and changing them into languages everyone can understand—is vitally important to run a healthy community program. Time constraints also make facets of the programs difficult for staff members.

“We’ve had a few false starts,” Dipko said. “It takes a lot of time to start some of these initiatives.” Kidd added that “everyone wears a lot of hats in city government, so scheduling of events or training presents some challenges.” Nyugen said holding events like the panel at the retreat allows for collaboration between cities, “kind of hearing something that makes the light bulb go on and realizing it’s an area we can all work on.”

“It’s going to take time and some patience for these programs to reach their maximized goal,” Dipko said. “The key is to be diligent. I think these healthy community programs can be rolled out across Utah. We’re just getting started.”  λ