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What do you need to prevent chronic disease in a large group of people such as the population of Alberta?  Change in environment or policy?  Focus on factors that determine health?  Partnership with the government?  Help people to take action?  Help communities discover the things that prevent them from making healthy choices? 

Evidence from studies conducted around the world indicates that all the components mentioned above are necessary to be successful and most effective in a population.  Results from several CINDI (Countrywide Noncommunicable Disease Intervention) projects support this evidence.  The Healthy Alberta Communities (HAC) project was modeled on the North Karelia project in Finland.  This is the best and most successful example of a population based chronic disease prevention program. 

Healthy Alberta Communities is unique because it is community driven.  People living in the community are being asked to identify what prevents them from making healthy choices.  The community coordinators have been working hard to create a local network with organizations and agencies already working in the communities.  After talking to the communities, the HAC project team will work with each community to help them take action to try and remove the barriers to healthy choices.  HAC wants to make healthy choices easy in the day to day lives of the people living in the four communities. 

The project team will keep track of the people taking part in the study to see if there is any change in their well-being by the end of the project.  They will also be tracking the steps each community takes along the way to see why the process worked or didn’t work.

This is an exciting time to be working towards health promotion and the prevention of chronic disease.  This project provides an excellent opportunity to develop a broad approach involving all aspects of the community.  Healthy Alberta Communities could help change the way Albertans think about health promotion and could lead to long term health benefits.