By Stephen Appezzato
ATLANTIC HIGHLANDS – New mayor Lori Hohenleitner is making community wellness a priority this year, launching the borough’s first Mayors Wellness Campaign. The campaign is in connection with a statewide effort run by the New Jersey Health Care Quality Institute (NJHCQI).
“Atlantic Highlands, to my knowledge, has never been part of it,” Hohenleitner said. Now, the borough will join more than 400 participating towns in the state to make communal health a focus.
“It’s a program that is hand-in-hand with Sustainable New Jersey and this is to promote wellness in communities throughout the state of New Jersey,” she said.
Sustainable New Jersey follows a similar model to NJHCQI, promoting small changes in individual towns in the state to contribute to a larger goal, focusing on sustainability and the environment.
This year’s Mayors Wellness Campaign is NJHCQI’s 16th annual program. It is designed to give mayors and community leaders evidence-based tools and guidance to improve communal health and wellness to help residents live their healthiest lives, according to the organization.
“It’s mental health, it’s cardiac health – there’s so many different areas that we could be, as a community, focused on,” Hohenleitner explained.
Using the resources, towns admitted to the pro- gram work toward achieving bronze, silver and eventually gold ranking, which denotes a healthy town up-and-coming, a healthy town to watch, and a healthy town, respectively. These designations are based on a grading rubric and points system for a town’s achievements within a program year.
Once accepted to the program, towns have access to resources, networking opportunities, guidance in creating physical and mental health initiatives and programming, and grant opportunities. The campaign also makes it easier for officials to connect with community partners, like local health care providers, trainers and nutritionists, to provide wellness-focused opportunities for a borough.
“We’re looking at all of our walkways, helping people learn about different ways that they can do low-cost or no-cost exercise; (we’re) definitely going to be promoting some healthy eating, working with local restaurants to see if we can identify healthy options on the menu” to make them more visible, said Hohenleitner.
“We’re going to have community health fairs and other public events to raise awareness,” she added.
Currently, Hohenleitner and co-chair of the committee, council member Eileen Cusack, are organizing a team of community members to spearhead the program. “I’ve asked some local health professionals but also business owners to be part of that,” Hohenleitner said.
Atlantic Highlands will now join the ranks of Highlands, Middletown and other local towns making community wellness a leadership focus.
The article originally appeared in the February 1 – 7, 2024 print edition of The Two River Times.
