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MAPPing Homer’s Future Health Needs

Posted in Homer Tribune on 2/17/16

By Susan Kaplan

Homer is a community that cares. We turn out for fundraisers, volunteer at local events and nurture strong friendships. In fact, according to a study completed by MAPP of the Southern Kenai Peninsula, 64 percent of local respondents say they always have supportive and loving relationships in their lives.
MAPP would like to utilize this strength.
Last Friday, the group hosted a Community Gathering event at Kenai Peninsula College to provide a forum for networking, collaborating, gathering feedback on shared goals, updates on collaborative efforts and keeping the bigger wellness picture alive.
MAPP was born out of a needs assessment required of nonprofit hospitals like South Peninsula Hospital. Now, according to their website,
“MAPP conducts community health needs assessments every three years to get a holistic, comprehensive look at the community’s strengths, needs and health trends over time. The assessment is then used to develop community priorities and strategies.”
Results from MAPP’s latest survey, “Perception of Community Health Survey,”showed that one of the greatest strengths here is the natural beauty of Homer. This was the consensus among those over the age of 20. For those 10-19 years old, the community’s strength is its cultural and arts opportunities.
The “over-20 folks” also agreed that one of Homer’s greatest challenges is creating jobs and economic opportunities. For 10-19 year-olds, public transportation was the No. 1 challenge.
These are but a couple samples of information gathered during MAPP’s third survey of the Homer area. Results can also be broken down for specific ages and geographical areas; by age, sex, income level, educational attainment, whether or not children are living in the home; there are multiple ways to look at the data.
Kyra Wagner acted as impromptu host for the Friday gathering. She started by inviting people to introduce themselves and discuss their connections to the eight dimensions of wellness.
Defined by MAPP, these eight dimensions include:
Cultural: An individual awareness of one’s own culture, — as well as understanding and respecting the diversity and richness of other cultures.
Economic: The ability to meet financial needs and adapt to unanticipated financial situations.
Educational: Recognition of creative abilities and the expansion of knowledge and skills.
Emotional: The ability to cope effectively with life and create personal enrichment through one’s work and relationships.
Environmental: A harmonious and sustainable relationship with immediate surroundings that expands to the natural world.
Physical: The ability to perform daily activities without undue fatigue or physical stress.
Social: A sense of connection, belonging, safety and a reliable support system.
Spiritual: A sense of purpose and meaning in life.

Members of nonprofits, governments and for-profit enterprises also shared their connections to wellness and how their work played a role.
Robbi Mixon spoke of the Food Hub; an online farmers’ market being set up that includes fish and other perishables.
Deb Lowney of the Woodard Creek Coalition invited the crowd to The Pratt Museum on Wednesday, Feb. 24, from 5-7 p.m. for a celebration of Woodard Creek sponsored by the Pratt Museum and the Woodard Creek Coalition.
Susan Cushing spoke of good news from the state’s latest victimization survey, showing it is now trending down.
Pam Lund of the Foraker Group invited all to “co-locate/collaborate” to get the ball rolling among the many groups present and in the area at large; from sharing services to sharing a physical location. It was an opportunity to brainstorm ways the community can come together in tough financial times to grow stronger.
A local subgroup working with Lund has collected a master list of meeting spaces available in Homer; this meeting list is housed as a community resource at pop411.org. Pop411 will soon be housed at www.skpresourcedirectory.net
Lund said the next step is to explore opportunities for shared services for cost-savings. Services currently being underserved in the area include: security, web design, legal services, grant writing, facility maintenance and more.
Lund said that, by coming together to share expenses, more can be possible. And, while collaboration does require a lot of communication, it reduces the work load in the long run.
“This is the work of sustaining a mission,” Lund explained, “not necessarily an organization.”
Anyone interested in finding out more about the MAPP program and needs-assessment Perception of Community Health survey results can email Megan Murphy at mappofskp@gmail.com.

Healthy You Key to Healthy Community

[Posted in the Homer News on 2.4.16]

By Kyra Wagner

This is the start of the political season when we start getting flooded with poll results. But rather than focus on what is happening at the national level regarding some familiar politician, I am fascinated with a lesser known celebrity: The Local Community Member.

Every three years, MAPP partners work together to collect opinions and data from hundreds of Local Community Members here on the southern Kenai Peninsula. And, as always, fascinating information comes up.

Like how this Local Community Member answers the question about what needs to be improved in our community. Every time this survey has been conducted, most recently starting in November, Local Community Members rank substance abuse as the highest concern on the community level.  On the family level, however, substance abuse never ranks as an issue.

So does that mean that substance abuse is always someone else’s problem? Or that Local Community Members believe that it is a serious issue even if they don’t suffer from it? When it comes to creating a healthy community, is a little substance abuse still too much?

Just like you might associate economic plans with political conversations, it is understandable that substance abuse will come up when talking about community health.  But what I love most about these surveys are the details about our Local Community Member that don’t generally make the headlines.

For instance, there is a question on the survey about what prevents you from using services or activities in the community. The one category that ranks highest, no surprise, is cost.  But there were two other categories that, when combined, added up to a bigger issue than even cost.  What is the biggest block in the life of the average Local Community Member that keeps them from taking advantage of what we have to offer here?

Time.  “Schedule conflicts” and “Not enough time” together ranked as a bigger problem than cost for most Local Community Members. We have a lot to offer here, lots of activities, lots of services, all of which can improve community health. But what if the Local Community Member never has the time to take advantage of them?

I find this interesting because this puts our Local Community Member back on the national stage. The life of the hurried multitasker is a stereotype of the typical American. But aren’t we different up here in Alaska?  Don’t we live in a wild, rural setting where the big city stresses never come into play? Natural beauty ranked as the greatest strength for our community on the survey. We all cherish it.

But it looks like our Local Community Member does have this national disease. Not enough time.

What makes this an important health issue is all the stress that is connected to it. All the missed opportunities that result. All the healthy time with friends and family that can get sacrificed. Time can be the root cause of all kinds of health issues that could have been taken care of properly with a little attention.

For instance, one of the things that has been shown to strengthen the family is shared meals. That takes time. It takes time to get a health checkup. It takes time to exercise. It takes time to relax. It takes time to call a loved one. But all of these things are exactly what makes this Local Community Member healthier.

No politician is going to legislate more time for the Local Community Member. No one is going to make more time for you, a Local Community Member, or your neighbor, another Local Community Member. How as a community can an issue like this be addressed? Only by Local Community Members.

This is the part of health care I love. The part where we as individuals can make a difference. Knowing the issue is the first step, but then addressing it is the next. Are you spending enough of your time on things that truly matter for your health? Remember, you can’t help anyone else if you are exhausted and unhealthy.

This is not a new conversation. Time management is a common topic for self-help books and inspirational videos of all kinds. But this is where we get to see that what is an issue in our family can also be an issue at the community level. It is all connected. To be a healthy community, we have to take care of ourselves. We are all Local Community Members.

So take some time for yourself. Do it for your community.

Kyra Wagner is the coordinator of Sustainable Homer and a member of the MAPP steering committee.

Community Resilience Starts with You

[Posted in the Homer News on 1.7.2016]

By Kyra Wagner

It’s a new year. Did you come up with a list of resolutions or decide to throw them all out and just make it through another day? Here I am writing an article about community health, but I have to tell you, it’s not my job. It’s yours.

The fact is, you cannot have a strong resilient community if all the residents that make up the population are stressed out and at their limit. During the last MAPP assessment 3 years ago we realized that many issues families struggle with are due to being pushed to the limits of time and money, patience and endurance.

So community resilience actually starts with the individual. How can you be more at peace? How can you best design your day so it feeds rather than drains you? A doctor can’t prescribe that, but it’s the best way to be healthy. Imagine if you told your doctor that you didn’t feel well and he said:

“I want you to meditate for 20 minutes twice a day, exercise for at least 30 minutes a day, avoid processed foods, eat plenty of organic fruits and vegetables, spend more time in nature and less indoors, stop worrying about things you cannot control and ditch your TV.  Come back in 3 weeks.”

Taking care of your self is the core of all health.  You cannot effectively take care of someone or something else until you are stable yourself. Like the stewardess tells us, “Put on your own oxygen mask before assisting others.”

This is a really old message.  Why do we hear it all the time yet still ignore it?  Megan Murphy, coordinator of MAPP, recently sent me a quote from a 1946 article that she found at her grandparents’ home while visiting over the holidays. It said, “Natural belief in self makes your life happier.”

How can we achieve that wellbeing? The first step of course is knowing where you are at in the first place.  How much time during your day do you spend in a reactive rather than receptive state? How often do you say no rather than yes? Try saying it out loud. You can feel it in your body, how yes feels and how no feels.

According to Dr. Dan Siegel, “these negative states are based on threat, and our whole system becomes unhealthy.” Reactive negative states come in the form of anxiety, anger, fear, sadness, maybe despair. These drag you down, we all know that. The more time you spend in a reactive state, the more time your body is set for that age-old instinctive fight or flight, flee or faint. That defensiveness is tiring.

How can we instead focus on thriving and flourishing? This is where the receptive state comes in. All the emotions associated with the positive receptive state are the emotions like kindness, compassion, caring, love, empathy, connection, joy and gratitude. Just say those things out loud and pay attention to that little uplift you will feel. The receptive state is simply the gateway to wellness.

Psychologist Shawn Achor calls this the Happiness Advantage. Achor states that, “Your brain in positive performs significantly better than in negative, neutral or stressed. Your intelligence rises, your creativity rises, energy levels rise. In fact, what we found is that every single business outcome improves.  Your brain in positive is 31% more productive than in negative, neutral or stressed.”

Achor also would say that 90% of your long-term happiness can be predicted not by the external world but by how your brain processes the world. Is your happiness tied to some future success? How can you bring happiness and that receptive state to every day?  It may take some exercise.

I’m not talking about exercise like jogging, though some folks may have that as one of their new year’s resolutions. A resolution to take care of yourself, put on your own oxygen mask, actually can be easier than that. Exercising that positive state can also include journaling a positive experience every day, doing a random act of kindness, or noting three things you are grateful for each day.

We have plenty of negative input from the world around us but for our own health we need the positive. Then we can be strong for our friends and family and help them into a state of positivity. Then we can help our coworkers.  Then we can help our community.

So this new year, take care of yourself. Be happy.  The world depends on it.

Kyra Wagner is the coordinator of Sustainable Homer and a member of the MAPP steering committee.