Well Being means thriving in every aspect of life and having opportunities to create meaningful futures. The Seven Vital Conditions for Well-Being is a useful framework for conceptualizing holistic well-being and the Conditions that give rise to it, as well as identifying levers for community change and improvement. It brings together major determinants of health, exposing how parts of a multi-faceted whole work as a system to produce population well-being. This framework helps users...

The National Organization of State Offices of Rural Health sets aside the third Thursday of every November to celebrate National Rural Health Day. National Rural Health Day is an opportunity to “Celebrate the Power of Rural” by honoring the selfless, community-minded, “can do” spirit that prevails in rural America, gives us a chance to bring to light the unique healthcare challenges that rural citizens face, and showcase the efforts of rural healthcare providers, State Offices of Rural...

Thank you for sharing this!

To answer your first question, ELI5 is text lingo for 'explain like I'm five' - a way to break down often complex topics into digestible bits. This post will introduce the Social Determinants of Health and help to ELI5 the topic.

It makes me think about the health impact pyramid. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2836340/ We can spend countless hours and immense effort trying to coax people to change behavior when we might be able to make a greater impact through a focus on changing the context in which people live, learn, work, and play. Thanks for making this so simple to understand!

It also means being courageous in communities where we can push the envelope in presenting new ideas. And to recognize that our Extension work is a both / and rather than an either / or in terms of direct education and the public health approach of policy, systems, environments.

Thank you! What great sets of questions to assist in a deeper understanding.

Many years ago, I participated in a book study of A Framework for Understanding Poverty , by Dr. Ruby Payne. While her work has sometimes been criticized for being a framework using a white, middle-class lens of the issue, it garnered significant traction is raising awareness and providing for conversations about poverty across many sectors, professions, and communities. Your ELI5 article stirs up many of the same opportunities. It is hard for an individual to look at things from another...

Over the past several months, I've been involved with a group examining the notion of well-being economies. Seeking a deeper understanding of the concept, I came across a 2020 article in the Stanford Social Innovation Review by Anna Chrysopoulou that posed a compelling vision for what a well-being economy might look like. "To solve the social, economic, and environmental challenges we face today, we need to rethink the status quo. Governments and other institutions around the world need to...

I love this, Robert! Thank you for sharing. I think Cooperative Extension has a critical role in advocating for a well-being focused economy. Cooperative Extension was created to meet the needs of our communities, and our communities need well-being champions!

Historically, Extension has worked in silos employing downstream measures, "focusing on health interventions related to poor diet" and "encouraging consumer demand for healthy food," along with upstream approaches to improving agricultural supply chains. Perhaps to mitigate the effects of larger problems it is time to break down the silos within our system, employ an Extension Health in All Policies and Programs , and attend to "root causes and interconnectedness" as an approach to social,...

Great piece - this will be good bite-size fodder to help catalyze conversations with my natural-resource and CED extension colleagues.

Really enjoying the SSIR article and the idea of connecting this to extension work. Made me think of the "Health in All Policies: Working Across Sectors in Cooperative Extension to Promote Health for All" (Journal of Human Sciences and Extension, Volume 6, Number 2, 2018). https://www.jhseonline.com/article/view/718 One key idea that stands out to me - the for this to take hold it will require extension to embrace the ideas from the ground up, and the top down. because extension has such...

Many counties around the work are questioning the way they measure progress as a nation. Instead of an economy based on the expectation of continual economic growth, they are thinking about building economies that promote well-being of people and the planet. This TedX presentation by Katherine Trebek of the Well-Being Economy Alliance shares her thoughts about why the transition is essential. Watch the presentation at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lt9NKulHTDE What are your thoughts?

Hi Roger, thanks for sharing this article. I whole heartedly agree. I particularly liked this statement "A well-being economy recognizes that people need to restore a harmonious relationship between society and nature, enjoy a fair distribution of resources, and live in healthy and resilient communities, and these elements are beginning to emerge in the individual policies of several countries." I do think this is a vision that Extension is well positioned to assist with. We are rooted in...

@Deborah John is spot on. The real opportunity is for Extension to lead this conversation in all program areas. This will take genuine, inspired leadership on everyone’s part and a willingness to reduce our commitment to the program-driven expert model and engage with people and communities to be part of the solution. In many states, the performance evaluation model for Extension workers will need to shift to parameters that reflect engagement, trust-building, generative conversations, and...

Thanks for sharing this article and posting this prompt Roger. I absolutely think Cooperative Extension has a unique and critical role to play in helping our communities transition to a well-being economy. Perhaps even an obligation! In fact this is something I looked closely at over the course of my year-long Extension Foundation fellowship back in 2018. My particular focus was on how Land Grants, Extension, and libraries like my own at Cornell might help optimize local and regional food...

What is the future role of Extension, and how does the Framework for Health Equity and Well-Being help guide Extension's work? On November 15, 2022, six presenters from LGU's across the country shared how their institutions are building capacity to implement the recommendations contained in the Framework. Topics included multi-disciplinary collaboration, the need for clear and relevant data, and aligning Extension work with existing health initiatives at the state and national level.

Hi! Are you able to post the synopsis of the second lightning session? Thanks!