APRIL 2021: NATIONAL MINORITY HEALTH MONTH - CPHA STEP CHALLENGE: STEP UP AND RECONNECT)
Cyndi Billian Stern, MA, MPH, founded CT Public Health Association’s Mentors on Request Committee, which trains and connects public health mentors to students.
The Positive Side of Public Health: Communities Reconnecting a Thousand Steps at a Time!
Four years ago, the American Public Health Association (APHA) launched its first national Step Challenge. It was a call to public health leaders in every state to get everyone moving—of all ages, races and abilities and from all communities. The goal was to collectively log one billion steps (or step equivalents) within 6 months. As Connecticut Public Health Association (CPHA) leaders with a passion for our work, we saw the Step Challenge as an opportunity to tackle several public health issues at once: physical inactivity, obesity, mental health disorders, and the role of climate change on community health. This year, we saw yet another benefit of this activity: Stepping up to reconnect.
When CPHA began its first Step Challenge, I was chairing our Mentoring Committee, also known as Mentors on Request (MOR) and saw how the event could connect our mentors with younger populations to raise awareness of careers in public health. Before COVID, when we mentioned public health to high school or college students, most responded with, “what exactly is public health?” So CPHA formed a partnership with Health Occupation Students of America (HOSA-CT), an organization with 25 high school and college chapters. Together, we began the Move and Mentor program where mentors and students logged steps while they talked about public health careers. HOSA students from across the state participated, counting their steps as they learned about topics like environmental influences on health and mental health. Both CPHA and HOSA won; the HOSA student team won for logging the most steps and Move and Mentor won the 2019 International HOSA Award.
In 2021, COVID has given the CPHA Step Challenge a new purpose. With over 61% of Americans now reporting loneliness, it has become a leading public health issue causing a rise in mental health illness. The Step Challenge is providing a way to overcome loneliness by reconnecting with the environment, with new and old friends, colleagues, and family. Through walks, and focusing on blue skies rather than Bluetooth, we can begin to count on our connections when we count our steps.
Reference(s)
https://www.cigna.com/about-us/newsroom/studies-and-reports/combatting-loneliness/
These are the findings from an Ipsos poll conducted July 16 – August 2, 2019, on behalf of Cigna. For the survey, a sample of 10,000 adults ages 18 and over from the continental U.S., Alaska and Hawaii were interviewed online, in English. The precision of Ipsos online polls is measured using a credibility interval. In this case, the poll has a credibility interval of ±1.1 percentage points for all respondents surveyed.