Partners With A Role to Play

• CHIP Advisory Council members and agencies
• YMCA of Western North Carolina - Asheville
• YWCA - Asheville
• Buncombe County Communications and Public Engagement (CAPE) Team
• *neighborhood/community gardens & food banks
• UNETE
• CIMA
• Asheville Buncombe Institute for Parity Achievement (ABIPA)
• Institute for Preventive Healthcare & Advocacy
• Buncombe County Age Friendly services
• Buncombe County Adult & Aging services

The overall approach used was a modified Results-Based Accountability process. A community input process was facilitated using the RBA Whole
Distance Exercise framework with multiple events held in partnership with community providers to listen to community voices. These input sessions included over 75 individuals including those with lived experience, health care providers, social service agencies, advocacy
organizations and local non-profits. The professionals participating included those working in the health field as well as those
working to address many of the social and economic factors that impact health.

The following actions have been identified by our CHIP Advisory and Leadership Team and community members as ideas for what can work for our community to make a difference on mental health and substance misuse in Buncombe County.

These are actions and approaches that our community partners and Buncombe County residents, including those directly affected by Chronic Disease, say it would take to do better:

These are actions and approaches that our partners think can make a difference:

• Community gardens
• BIPOC Food sovereignty 

What is Currently Working in Our Community 

These are actions and approaches that are currently in place in our community to make a difference on chronic disease:

• Home visiting programs - bringing services to the people
• Food preparation and cooking classes to reduce chronic health conditions
• Community Health Workers
• YMCA's diabetes programming

What Community Members Most Affected by Chronic Disease (Heart Disease & Diabetes) Say 

These are the actions and approaches recommended by members of our community who are most affected by chronic disease:

• Integrative whole person healthcare - one stop shop for health
• Food soverienty initiatives - restoring green spaces to historic BIPOC communities 
• Increasing easy/conveient access to healthy food options
• Knowing about risk factors, how to facilitate conversations across generations about cultural practices that impact and reduce risk

Process for Selecting Priority Strategies
Participants in our community input sessions were asked to identify strategies related to the root causes of chronic disease in our community. They were provided examples of evidenced-based strategies, as well as prompted to include innnovative ideas and approaches that were no-cost or low-cost approaches. A nominal group dot voting process was used to identify what strategies most resonated across the group. Summary themes and data were shared with the CHIP Leadership team, as well as the CHIP Advisory to make additional recommendations based on feasibility, leverage and impact.

Evidence-Based Strategies 

These are actions and approaches that have been shown to make a difference on mental health and substance misuse: