Office of Healthy Communities (OHC)

About OHC

Mission

Coordinate or network with all existing interdepartmental community health efforts that improve the health and quality of life of the community. The Office of Healthy Communities (OHC) plays a lead role on behalf of the Department, in service to the community capacity building including community linkages, quality systems improvement, training and communication.

Purpose

• Support healthy communities, enrich peoples lives
• Work towards eliminating health disparities
• Move DPH to broad-based thinking about health and empowering communities
• Expand the reach of public health

What We Do

• Organize, build capacity and support communities
• Support collaboration across Bureaus, Centers and Outside Partners
• Help facilitate the development of competency based trainings, policies, protocols and practices
• Assure Massachusetts public health organizations, CHNAs and agencies have resources and opportunities to build skills and capacity based on best practice standards

Intended Outcomes

• Communities are actively engaged in collaboration and partnership to improve health
• People most in need are listened to, advocated for, and respectfully connected to services
• Community has access to information and resources
• DPH and broader public believe in the power of the proactive prevention perspective
• DPH policies and practices are developed or revised to meet the assets and needs within communities