Organized in 2011, the BRIGHT – Barren River Initiative to Get Healthy Together – Coalition is now ready for a new approach to reaching its goal of improving the overall health status of the communities in the 10 counties that make up the Barren River Area Development District.

BRIGHT’s vision of strengthening the local economy, contributing to educational success and improving the quality of life hasn’t changed, but its approach to those goals is being tweaked a bit.

Speaking during a meeting June 20 of the BRADD board of directors, Barren River District Health Department Director Dennis Chaney outlined a new approach that means some changes in how the coalition’s stakeholder groups are organized and a new focus that could lead to convening a forum to address the opioid drug crisis.

The health department worked with The Medical Centers in Bowling Green, Franklin, Scottsville and Caverna, the Monroe County Medical Center and T.J. Samson Community Hospital in Glasgow to form the coalition seven years ago.

The four stakeholder groups identified then – health care delivery system, worksites, educational system and communities – remained the same through BRIGHT’s first two three-year strategic plans. But now, as the group is putting together the plan for the 2019-21 period, the organization is changing terminology to better reflect an emphasis on addressing the needs found in the county health rankings developed by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

BRIGHT will now be organized around the stakeholder groups of healthy lifestyle, health services, health equity and healthy environment, all designed to address needs found in the county health rankings.

“The challenge going forward is to keep this group engaged,” Chaney said. “How do we know we’re making a difference?”

The coalition hopes to answer that question by analyzing the county health rankings and concentrating on the four health factors identified by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation: health behaviors, clinical care, social and economic factors and physical environment.

Chaney admits that the county health rankings are a mixed bag, with some of the region’s counties showing progress while others remain flat in a database of all 120 Kentucky counties.

Factors such as smoking rates, obesity and number of physicians per capita are weighed in the county rankings, compiled for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation by the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute.

The statistics do show that Kentucky and the BRADD region do not fare well when compared to national averages for cardiovascular disease, diabetes, lung disease and obesity. Addressing those issues is more than a health issue, Chaney pointed out.

“The health of a community has an impact on the academic success of students,” he said. “And an unhealthy workforce leads to productivity and attendance issues. It becomes an economic issue.”

That’s why Chaney has tried to involve as many sectors of the region as possible on the BRIGHT Coalition. He said many employers, local governments and certain members of the faith community have been instrumental in helping address community health issues.

“We’ve learned that when we work together, we have a better chance of success than if we work in silos,” he said.

Chaney and the BRIGHT Coalition will get together next week to fine-tune the new stakeholder groups and priority health issues the group will address during the next three-year community health plan. He expects the meeting, scheduled for Tuesday at the BRADD office, to include some discussion of how the group plans to tackle the opioid issue.