Alachua County is working hard to make our community healthier through the implementation of a five-year Community Health Improvement Plan, or CHIP, that reflects county health priorities.

The Florida Department of Health in Alachua County (DOH-Alachua) serves as the lead organization for a coordinated effort among community partners, representing a diverse group of organizations and stakeholders whose efforts will continue through the end of 2029.

“The CHIP focuses on five priority areas: access to care, behavioral health, chronic disease prevention, healthy living, and affordable housing,” said Kourtney Oliver, DOH-Alachua program administrator. “The goals of the plan were developed through a strategic prioritization process with community participation.”

What gives the CHIP its potential is community involvement stemming from the wide range of entities involved in setting its goals.

 “CHIP is an opportunity for communities to set priorities, coordinate efforts, and target resources for action,” Oliver said. “Community members and organizations dedicate existing resources to be included in the plan and are involved in the process of developing, monitoring, and revising the Community Health Assessment (CHA) and the CHIP.” 

All 67 Florida counties have implemented a CHIP through a common process of collecting, analyzing, and using data, Oliver said. But each county has its unique plan, reflecting its priorities.

In the case of Alachua County, priorities were set as the result of a strategic planning process that went on for more than a year before the CHIP was released in January 2025, with a lot of attention to detail. In the healthy living category, for example, one of the goals is to reduce the percentage of people who are sedentary and increase the number of people who eat vegetables.

“The community identified healthy living as a strategic priority area to address chronic disease prevention,” Oliver said. “Healthy eating and being physically active are important in preventing chronic disease conditions like obesity, type 2 diabetes, heart disease and some cancers.

Each category has its goals, adopted from established groups in the community, which allows the CHIP to function with existing resources. Lead individuals and/or organizations have accepted responsibility for implementing the strategies in the CHIP, Oliver said.

Oliver describes the CHIP as a “living document” because it is open to be revised or changed as needed.

“The CHIP is monitored and tracked throughout the duration of the plan,” she said. “It is intended to be a living document that is continually updated and modified to reflect the changing needs and priorities of the community.”

In that spirit, the CHIP team maintains a tracking and monitoring process with quarterly meetings to assess progress. Additionally, a review meeting will be held yearly to make changes to the plan as needed, with a revised CHIP plan published after the annual review meeting.

Participants included individuals representing county and municipal governments, non-profits, schools, early care and education centers, hospitals, the homeless population, behavioral healthcare, and academia.

Other contributors came from the fields of tobacco policy and prevention, food systems, family medicine, rural health, federal nutrition programs, as well as public health, housing, and social services programs. Many of these same partners have committed to participating in the implementation plan, Oliver said.