Health Alliance Partners
Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services
The Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services is the largest and most diverse state agriculture department in the country. Supporting Florida’s farmers may be our best-known role, but it is just one of our many important responsibilities. We inspect your grocery stores for cleanliness and safety. We handle consumer complaints, helping resolve disagreements between buyers and sellers. We inspect scales and gas pumps so you get what you pay for. The Department’s activities touch the lives of virtually every Floridian every day.
Agriculture is Florida’s second-largest industry and has an annual economic impact estimated at $87.6 billion. The support that the Department provides for agriculture helps keep the industry and our economy strong.
Consumer Health Initiative Campaigns
Among the regulatory responsibilities of the Florida Department of Agriculture. The Division of Marketing and Development has the role of promoting Florida agriculture and agricultural products.
As part of its ongoing “Fresh from Florida” marketing program, the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services has developed several public awareness campaigns that encourage reasonable and achievable lifestyle changes including increased consumption of fresh fruits and vegetables, with the eventual goal of consuming at least five servings a day. The campaigns also encourage increased physical activity, especially among those with sedentary lifestyles.
In 2004, the Department launched the “It’s a Fact…” campaign. This African American health initiative encouraged daily exercise and the increased consumption of fresh fruits and vegetables. Celebrity fitness expert Donna Richardson Joyner served as the spokesperson to encourage healthier lifestyles. The multi-media campaign featured a series of television and radio public service announcements as well as print ads in newspapers and magazines throughout the state. Brochures were developed providing tips for eating healthier and recipes for healthy snacks. Winn-Dixie partnered and mailed coupons to over 50,000 customers statewide to encourage increased consumption of fresh Florida produce. The Department sponsored three community outreach events that featured workouts with Donna Richardson Joyner and provided fresh Florida produce.
In the same year a healthy lifestyles campaign was launched targeting Hispanic consumers. This initiative provided information and nutritional facts about eating healthy while encouraging the use of fresh Florida fruits and vegetables in traditional Hispanic meals. We participated in a variety of cultural celebrations and historic events throughout the state, including the North Florida Hispanic Heritage Festival, Miami’s Calle Ocho, and the Gasparilla Festival in Tampa. Advertising included interior signage in public transit buses throughout Miami and Jacksonville.
Additional community events and health initiative programs that the Florida Department of Agriculture has been involved with includes:
- The Florida Classic in Orlando, Florida
- Touchdown for Life: Super Wellness Health Fair held in Jacksonville, Florida in conjunction with Super Bowl XXXIX.
- The “Gospel Health Celebration” in Fort Lauderdale, Florida – which featured Donna Richardson Joyner.
- The “Xtreme Cuisine Cooking School,” which teaches students ages 9 to 15 how to make their own healthy snacks using fresh Florida fruits and vegetables.
Love Yourself Take Care of Yourself
The National Minority Organ Tissue Transplant Education Program (MOTTEP) and its affiliates across the country including South Florida launched the “Love Yourself Take Care of Yourself” campaign six years ago. The National MOTTEP’s mission is to reduce the number and rate of ethnic minorities needing organ transplants by promoting healthy lifestyles focusing primarily on hypertension, diabetes, proper nutrition and physical activity.
More than 92,000 individuals are waiting for life saving organs on the national transplant waiting list. Ethnic minorities constitute 50% of those waiting. More than 67,000 individuals need kidney transplants mostly due to uncontrolled high blood pressure and diabetes.
National MOTTEP, in conjunction with their South Florida Alliance of Community Partners will have outreach activities to promote health awareness throughout African American and Caribbean communities in South Florida. “Love Yourself, Take Care of Yourself” health and wellness activities will culminate with celebrity work out demonstrations, health screenings, and healthy food tasting for the entire family.
- Who are the community partners?
- Life Alliance Organ Recovery Agency
- Donate Life
- University of Miami Tissue Bank
- University of Miami Project Outreach
- Center for Minority Studies
- Baptist Health System (CHAMP)
- South Dade Community Health Center, Inc.
- 100 Black Men of South Florida
Mission to Health
The Mission to Health is a unique collaborative program designed to address chronic disease prevention within the African Americans and Caribbean communities of Miami-Dade. Mission to Health utilizes a faith-based approach to reach out to the community.
As a part of the Consortium for a Healthier Miami-Dade the Miami-Dade County Health Department and the Florida Heart Research Institute will screen individuals for blood pressure, body mass index, total cholesterol, HDL (good cholesterol), and glucose to identify those at risk for heart disease, stroke, diabetes and obesity. At the screening, each participant will be counseled based upon individual risk for chronic diseases to urge healthy lifestyle changes. The collaborative partnership, which includes medical follow-up, will be provided by registered nurses, dietitians and health educators.
The initiative offers a three month program of education and counseling on diet, nutrition, fitness and healthy lifestyles. The Florida Heart Research Institute will then re-screen at the end of the three month period to determine if interventions were successful.
- Who are our community partners?
- Miami-Dade County Health Department
- Consortium for a Healthier Miami Dade
- Florida Heart Research Institute
- Miami-Dade Area Health Education Center
- University of Florida Cooperative Extension Service
- Economic Opportunity Family Health Center
- Blue Foundation for a Healthy Florida
- Health Foundation of South Florida
- Dade Community Foundation
Historic Overtown Public Health Empowerment (H.O.P.E.) Collaborative
In 1995, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) proposed a model of developing, testing and promoting effective interventions to address local health priorities through the establishment of urban research centers. The mission of these centers was to improve quality of life and health of urban residents.
Overtown is a historic community and the ancestral home for many of Miami’s African American and Caribbean residents. Overtown is currently among the most impoverished neighborhoods in Miami and has one of the highest disease rates. In Miami, the African Americans have diabetes rates 40% higher than the general population.
The University of Miami Department of Family Medicine and Community Health, the Jackson Memorial Hospital Familiy Medicine Residency, The Jefferson Reaves Sr. Health Center and the Booker T. Washington High School joined together to develop an initiative aimed to promote the history of Overtown, knowledge about nutrition and healthy nutrition practices. Physicians and nutritionists from the University of Miami Department of Family Medicine work with students and teachers at Booker T. Washington High School to promote interest in health careers. Through this collaboration the concept of the “Overtown Diet” was developed.
To commemorate the “Overtown Diet” concept, students in culinary classes at Booker T. Washington competed in a cooking contest preparing dishes that were healthy, easy to prepare, inexpensive and tied to the history of Overtown. Subsequently, the school’s Educational Excellence School Advisory Council voted funds to enable ongoing development and use of healthy recipes to be featured at the Twister Café. This is an exceptional student educational facility that is a functioning café for staff and students. One on the goals of this project is to develop an “Overtown Diet” cookbook and website.
- Who are the community partners?
- University of Miami Department of Family Medicine and Community Health
- Jackson Memorial Hospital Family Medicine Residency
- Jefferson Reaves Sr. Health Center
- Florida International University Stempel School of Public Health
- Booker T. Washington High School
Florida Introduces Physical Activity and Nutrition to Youth, Inc. (FLIPANY)
FLIPANY’S mission is to provide affordable physical activity and nutrition programs to Florida’s youth and their families. FLIPANY collaborates with neighborhood social service agencies, community centers, parks and after school programs to enhance their services in the areas of nutrition and health and reach underserved populations.
Operation Frontline's hands-on classes are taught in the kitchen by professional chefs and nutritionists who volunteer to share their strength by teaching nutrition, cooking, and budgeting to low-income adults and children. The goal of Operation Frontline is to provide a long-term solution to poor nutrition by teaching participants how to select, purchase, and prepare healthy low-cost food for their families.
Eat Right. Get Moving. Repeat! is designed to guide elementary and middle school age youth through a time in their lives when motor development, social skills and group dynamics are learned. It is essential our youth are provided safe situations where they can learn life skills as well as academics. Eat Right. Get Moving. Repeat! uses various physical activities to develop trust, caring, decisiveness, determination, cooperation and communication through unified teamwork. Situations challenge youth to analyze their old ways of thinking and acting and requires them to work "outside the box" to accomplish the task at hand. Youth are faced with challenging problems and are required to take risks, talk, and share responsibility for a successful effort. Only through unified teamwork can the group succeed and move on to the next element.
- Who are our partners?
- Share Our Strength’s Operation Frontline
- Chef Allen’s The Restaurant
- RAV Public Relations
- North Broward Hospital District
- Coordinating Council of Broward
- Broward County Health Department
- Commit 2B Fit
- Community Foundation of Broward
- AD Henderson Foundation
- American Express Foundation
