Clark County
The Heart Healthy Community Program

Process evaluation found that programs were well implemented. Materials were developed and distributed. Coalition partners worked together to get information out to their clients and participants. Partners reported that the heart healthy materials were useful. 

Post- program evaluation forms were completed by some children who participated in the Kid's Fitness classes. Please see Kid's Fitness Evaluation Forms. 

One of the goals of the project is to build community awareness of heart health risk factors. This is a difficult outcome to measure. There has been only one county specific BRFSS in Clark County. That was in 1996. Behaviors and attitude changes that are covered by BRFSS may take many years to show up. It will be difficult to determine if changes were influenced by the Heart Healthy program. 

Lessons Learned 

This project, like all good community health projects, is evolving over time as the Health and Safety work group responds to community feedback and takes advantage of new information, sources of funding, and community support. 

While the input from the oversight committee and the work of volunteers from business, industry, and agencies is a valuable part of this project, it requires effort to keep coalitions such as this functioning well over time. Oversight committee roles have to be clearly delineated. 

The group plans to strengthen the evaluation component of their work as the next phases are planned and implemented. Evaluation will be built in from the beginning. An evaluation component is sometimes viewed as a barrier by those who work directly with families. There is a tendency to want to "jump in and do something," and project leaders must remind the group of the importance of learning about the effectiveness of an intervention. 

The project coordinator feels that the strength of this community health effort is that it is part of a much larger community effort. The ongoing support of the Community Choices 2010 leader, the resources and personnel provided by the business community, and the opportunities provided by the network of the broad umbrella of Community Choices 2010 are instrumental to the success of this group. 
 
 

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BRFSS Results for Clark County