Preventive health efforts: staying healthy this winter.

• Author: Sommer, Susan
• Position: HEALTH & MEDICINE

It might seem as though Alaskans aren't doing a very good job of staying healthy. Statistics show that 41 percent of the state's three-year-olds are either overweight or obese. Alaska's suicide rate is twice the national average. One in three high school students is regularly exposed to secondhand smoke.

The preventive health field, however, has many advocates working to support individual and group efforts to keep Alaskans healthy.

Obesity

Two-thirds of the state's population is either overweight or obese. Direct medical health care for obesity in Alaska costs $459 million each year.

The State of Alaska Department of Health and Social Services (DHSS) has many preventive health programs in place. One of its priorities is reducing obesity rates.

Two youth-focused programs of the Obesity Prevention and Control Program (OPCP) aim to reduce obesity numbers and send the trend running the other way: Play Every Day and Healthy Futures.

Play Every Day promotes Alaska-specific, strategic messages focused on raising awareness about childhood obesity and encourages families to be active participants in getting an hour of exercise each day. The program uses community and school events as well as a variety of media venues to reach its audience.

Healthy Futures promotes a school-based physical activity challenge that rewards children who complete the challenge with prizes. The program supports community activity events such as the Anchorage Fur Rendezvous Frostbite Footrace by making them affordable for families. Healthy Futures also partners with well-known athletes like Kikkan Randall and Scotty Gomez.

OPCP also supports using local foods in schools and recognizes the importance of traditional Alaska Native foods. It implemented the Alaska Farmers Market Quest-Card Program so that vendors could accept food stamp cards. And OPCP provides funding and leadership for the Alaska Food Policy Council, a conglomerate of state and federal agencies, tribal entities, university programs, farmers, fisheries, and food systems businesses.

Suicide

The State's Community-Based Suicide Prevention Program provides support and assistance to communities to develop and implement their own locally-designed suicide prevention projects. Grants, training, and support and an information network are available. All size communities are involved, as are nonprofits that represent neighborhoods and sub-sections of large communities.

The Alaska State Suicide Prevention Council was established by the Alaska State Legislature in 2001. Its uniquely Alaskan endeavor, Casting the Net Upstream: Promoting Wellness to Prevent Suicide, is a call to action that recognizes that "suicidal behavior results from a combination of genetic, developmental, environmental, physiological...