Lake County leaders learn healthier residents can bring economic benefits
About 200 Lake County leaders gathered Tuesday for what served as brainstorming session on how to improve residents' health.
In part, those who attended the Together Summit at College of Lake County in Grayslake learned how public heath initiatives can have economic benefits. Educators, public health representatives, elected government officials and hospital executives were among the guests at the summit co-sponsored by the Lake County Health Department.
Keynote speaker Tyler Norris, chief executive of the Institute for Mental Health and Wellness and former vice president of Total Health Kaiser Permanente, described a Pennsylvania fresh-food financing initiative intended to give about 400,000 people healthier options.
Norris said that program addressed mostly rural areas lacking supermarkets with healthy choices, commonly called food deserts. More full-service grocery stores, farmers markets and other businesses were created to address the need.
Roughly $190 million in economic benefits to Pennsylvania, including 5,000 new jobs and 1.7 million square feet of construction, came from the healthy-eating effort, Norris said. Banks benefited by providing business loans.
"You help me understand, is this a health strategy? Yes," Norris said in his address. "Is it an economic development strategy? Yes."
Development plans of towns can influence a population's health, Norris said. When building new streets or renovating them, cities need to make walking and bicycling easier for residents to achieve health benefits, he said.
"It's not the health care plan; it's the master plan," Norris said. "It's the parks plan. It's sidewalks. It's access points. It's the way in which we make it easier to make healthy choices."
Later in the summit, health department Director of Strategic Initiatives Adam Carson challenged community leaders to prioritize creating more walkable areas in Lake County.
Education also is important for healthier living, Norris said. In a question-and-answer session after his speech, Grayslake High School District 127 Superintendent Catherine Finger told Norris about an initiative involving CLC.
Finger said her district is part of the new CLC Promise pilot program designed to help students who believe higher education is out of their reach due to a lack of money. The idea is to provide students with enough financial assistance to allow them to graduate from CLC as close to debt-free as possible.
"One of the things that I think is amazing about Lake County, about us, is I feel like we come together around matters that concern us," Finger said.