Designation Criteria
The Healthy Communities Designation program has a tiered designation approach (i.e., gold, silver, and bronze level designations) intended to allow for the acknowledgment of communities early on in their broad health improvement efforts, as well as of those communities with more advanced, comprehensive, and long-lasting efforts.
In order to earn a designation, communities must demonstrate that they are following the guiding principles below. The guiding principles reflect the criteria from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Culture of Health Prize and have been modified for this designation program. While the two programs are unrelated, it is our hope that the Wisconsin Healthy Communities Designation offers an additional way for communities to be recognized for progress on their local efforts.
1. Defining health broadly to engage in efforts to address locally identified health needs (ideally those identified in community health needs assessments conducted by the local health department and/or local hospitals). This includes the following:
a. Identifying needs/initiatives in more than one of the following health categories: health behaviors, clinical care, social & economic factors, and physical environment.
b. Considering the potential reach and impact of initiatives (e.g., initiatives can be either targeted to specific subgroups or the entire population). More targeted initiatives should be expected to achieve greater health improvements.
2. Committing to sustainable and comprehensive long-term solutions. This includes implementing policy, systems, and environment change that works toward sustainable and long-term solutions.
3. Creating conditions that give everyone a fair and just opportunity to reach their best possible health. Applicants should demonstrate their commitment to advancing health equity by creating conditions where all residents have the opportunity to be healthy.
4. Harnessing the collective power of leaders, partners, and community members. Applicants should demonstrate how residents, government, business, and non-profit organizations are working together to improve health.
5. Securing and making the most of available resources including dollars, people power, etc.
6. Measuring and sharing progress and results.
Each tier (gold, silver, bronze) has different requirements for each of the guiding principles. View the full program criteria grid to see the requirements.