Healthy Anchorage Indicators
ach and every Anchorage resident has the power to improve their health and quality of life by making wiser health choices every day-choices such as what to eat and drink or how much exercise to engage in. We as a community must make health choices as well—choices such as access to health care coverage and deterrents to unsafe health practices. To make wise decisions, we need good information. The purpose of Healthy Anchorage Indicators is to help provide this information.
Every day, people in Anchorage and all over the nation check the news for information about economic indicators. We eye interest rates, note the unemployment rate, even read the Wall Street Journal on a daily basis because this information helps us make day-to-day decisions—decisions such as, "Would now be a good time to buy a new car?" Economic indicators help us assess how we are doing and help us plan for the future.
Yet, economic indicators alone are not enough. Since our quality of life is determined by more than the size of our paychecks, we also need indicators that measure our physical, mental, environmental, and social health. Your Mercedes can't cure you of cancer or raise your children. It is a healthy community that allows you to do this. So it is important that we have information about the health and well being of our community.
It is our hope that Anchorage will start to monitor our health and social well being in the same careful manner as we monitor our economic health. Together, we can use this information to assess our health, identify areas that need attention, set priorities for our day-to-day lives, and ultimately improve our health and quality of life.
If you have questions, suggestions, or would like more information, please call Margaret Gressens, the Project's Director, at 907-343-4655.
Click here to read an excerpt from Healthy People 2000 describing important changes in our thinking about personal health and how these changes impact the well being of our community.
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