By Sharon Lansdale, President/CEO, The Center for Rural Health Development, Inc.
The Center for Rural Health Development, in partnership with the Claude Worthington Benedum Foundation, the Logan Healthcare Foundation, and the Sisters Health Foundation, hosted former Surgeon General Jerome Adams to speak at the WV Business Summit last week. Dr. Adams’ presentation focused on his signature report: Community Health and Economic Prosperity: Engaging Businesses as Stewards and Stakeholders. His insights, if heeded, could be transformational for communities throughout West Virginia.
We must dare to dream of a West Virginia that is Wild, Wonderful and Healthy, because to not have this vision for our state is to accept that poverty, unemployment, disease and inequities are insurmountable. In my conversations with business leaders at the Summit, I believe many have this dream for our state in which they and their businesses have invested much.
The path toward community, and then eventually state, transformation will be difficult and take time. We did not develop these health and economic disparities overnight and no short-term solution, while important, will move us closer to our vision for our state. Transformation of our state will require concerted implementation of a wide range of efforts community by community throughout our state. Such “innovative transformation” is needed if we are going to move our state out of the bottom in health indicators and create a climate supportive of economic prosperity for all.
As John Deskins posited during his remarks at the Business Summit, it would be great if the fix to West Virginia’s economy was a tax or other policy, but it is not. The solution will involve each of us working in our communities to create a critical mass of social, resource, infrastructure and human capital to attain the breadth and depth of effort needed in our communities to create a culture of health that supports economic prosperity for all community residents.
As the proverb goes: “the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago, the next best time is today.”