Get Healthy Utah News and Blog

On February 5, 2025, the Utah Business of Health Event, organized by Get Healthy Utah, The Utah Worksite Wellness Council, and Utah Community Builders, took place at the Loveland Living Planet Aquarium. The event, themed "Well Connected," brought together 70 business and health leaders from across Utah to explore the impact of social connections on employee and community well-being. Highlights included expert panels and roundtable discussions on enhancing professional and personal networks, team engagement, burnout prevention, and leadership development. The event emphasized the importance of collaborative efforts to improve the health and quality of life for all Utahns.

Sponsors

EvolvedMD integrates mental health services into primary care, addressing limited access, provider shortages, and fragmented care. Their approach enhances patient outcomes, reduces costs, and supports both patients and providers with significantly better results in depression and anxiety.

Health Movement, founded by Rich Miller, introduced the a universal health tracking platform. This innovative platform offers free solutions for data collection, analysis, and reporting, enhancing accessibility for various organizations.

Expert Panel

The Utah Wellbeing Project, presented by Dr. Courtney Flint, examines the factors contributing to a good life across Utah's communities. The project's research indicates that wellbeing includes physical and mental health, social connections, and living standards. Key findings reveal that while domains like safety, family, and connection with nature are highly rated, areas such as education, social connections, and transportation need improvement. Community connection and activities like walking and biking correlate with higher wellbeing. Concerns vary, with some desiring faster economic development for more opportunities, while others worry about traffic and loss of small-town feel. Top concerns statewide include water supply, air quality, and affordable housing. Overall, businesses can play an important role in enhancing community wellbeing

The University of Utah Resiliency Center, under the direction of Dr. Amy Locke, is dedicated to promoting optimal health and well-being using a holistic, people-centered strategy. The center tackles burnout and moral distress, fostering a culture of community, connection, and purpose through initiatives like resilience-building programs and Code Lavender for crisis support. It uses a three-tiered support system and offers resources like wellbeing toolkits, aiming to empower individuals and improve the overall work environment. This approach seeks to address stress injuries and improve joy in work by focusing on the needs of individuals, teams, and leadership within the organization.

Nicole Carpenter's presentation on strengths-based leadership emphasizes that effective leaders leverage their authentic selves and build teams with complementary skills. The core idea is to focus on individuals' strengths rather than weaknesses to boost productivity and create a positive work environment. By understanding team strengths and navigating dynamics effectively, leaders can foster collaboration and improve communication. A strengths-based approach aims to maximize potential and improve overall performance, as highlighted by the ElevateHER Challenge, which promotes women in leadership and equitable practices.

Round Table Discussions

During the 2025 Utah Business of Health Roundtables, participants engaged in dynamic discussions, rotating through tables guided by knowledgeable moderators. They shared insights, explored current practices, and discussed resources. The event created an environment of learning and collaboration, leaving participants inspired and equipped with practical strategies to implement in their workplaces. The roundtable groups included:

• Utah Wellbeing Survey
• Resiliency Center Programs
• Gallup Strengths-Based Leadership
• Division of Outdoor Recreation
• Health Movement
• One Kind Act a Day
• General Well Connected Table

Conclusion

Participants left feeling motivated to promote employee mental health and were equipped with the resources and strategies to make a difference. We are grateful to everyone who attended and to the amazing partners, sponsors, and speakers who made this event possible!

Key Takeaways:

• Generally, there is a strong correlation between social connection and positive health outcomes
• Social connections may be protective against heart disease–related deaths
• Social connections increase self-management of diabetes
• Communities can improve social connection for residents through improving the built environment, particularly through increasing green spaces

Eliza Prickett is a Master’s student in Public Health at Brigham Young University. As part of her program, she prepared a literature review on the effects social connectedness has on health outcomes. A portion of her review is included below. The literature review in its entirety can be viewed here.

Human beings thrive with social connections, and this connection impacts those in the community. Social connection is “the size and diversity of one's social network and roles, the functions these relationships serve, and their positive or negative qualities,” according to the CDC (CDC, 2024).  Lack of social connection is “associated with chronic physical symptoms, frailty, coronary heart disease, malnutrition, hospital readmission, reduced vaccine uptake, early mortality, depression, social anxiety, psychosis, cognitive impairment in later life, and suicidal ideation” (Morina et al., 2021).  Increasing social connection helps the individual and compounds itself, growing with each connection until the entire community is positively impacted.

An emerging way to increase social connection, especially in urban environments, is to include greenspace and Public Open Spaces (POS) in urban planning. Social isolation, loneliness, and social belonging are all impacted by the built environment (Reed & Bohr, 2020). Maintaining these built environments is essential for maintaining social connections, as there is a direct influence on the upkeep of a social environment and mental health connections (Leyden et al., 2011; Sullivan & Chang, 2011). These built environments can create spaces for social connections to flourish. Making these social environments green, whether through flowers and trees or just having grass, can add to the social benefit these spaces create for communities in Utah. As new communities continue to grow and develop in Utah, providing ways to increase social connection has many long-term benefits for mental and emotional health and overall physical health.

CDC. (2024, May 16). Social Connection. Social Connection. https://cdc.gov/social-connectedness/about/index.html

Morina, N., Kip, A., Hoppen, T. H., Priebe, S., & Meyer, T. (2021). Potential impact of physical distancing on physical and mental health: a rapid narrative umbrella review of meta-analyses on the link between social connection and health. BMJ Open, 11(3), e042335. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2020-042335

Reed, S., & Bohr, J. (2020). The Influence of Local Built Environments on Social Wellbeing: a Community’s Experience with Social Isolation, Social Loneliness, and Social Belonging. International Journal of Community Well-Being. https://doi.org/10.1007/s42413-020-00091-6

Leyden, K. M., Goldberg, A., & Duval, R. D. (2011). The built environment, maintenance of the public sphere and connections to others and to place: an examination of 10 international cities. Journal of Urbanism: International Research on Placemaking and Urban Sustainability, 4(1), 25–38. https://doi.org/10.1080/17549175.2011.559946

Sullivan, W. C., & Chang, C.-Y. (2011). Mental Health and the Built Environment. Making Healthy Places, 106–116. https://doi.org/10.5822/978-1-61091-036-1_7

Get Healthy Utah worked with the Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute to learn more about city and town leaders’ attitudes and strategies regarding the Healthy Utah Community Designation and community health. 139 leaders from 75 Utah cities and towns responded. 

Here are some of the key takeaways:

• Many city and town leaders are interested in earning the Healthy Utah Community Designation! If you’re one, check out our website to learn more about what your community needs to do to qualify.
• The Healthy Utah Community Designation has a positive, useful impact.

• Health is a high priority for community leaders across the state. Compared to our 2020 survey, more respondents now believe that municipal governments have a role in community health.
• The Healthy Utah Community Designation focus areas (Nutrition, Physical Activity, and Mental Health) have different levels of prioritization:
  • In Nutrition, many leaders have neutral sentiments about action items, with a notable portion lacking plans for implementation. 
  • Physical Activity sees a strong commitment to both actions and their implementation. 
  • Mental Health is a critical issue across the state, and leaders want to enhance mental health resources.
• The most significant barrier communities face in implementing strategies is funding.

Thank you to everyone who participated in the survey! We appreciate your help, and we look forward to using these insights to continue improving our resources and the Healthy Utah Community designation. You can view the whole report on our website.

This fall, Get Healthy Utah partnered with Move Utah and Bike Utah to host the first-ever Connected Communities Summit! The summit, which was held September 18-19, 2024 at the Utah Valley Convention Center in Provo, combined each organization's annual event and educated participants on the theme "Building an Active, Healthy Utah." The summit pulled together diverse professionals such as policymakers, elected leaders, transportation and city planners, and public health experts--all people dedicated to the health and wellbeing of Utah's communities. 

Keynote Speakers

The summit featured a plenary panel and two keynote speakers--Chris Danley and Mark Fenton--who are experts on walkability and healthy community design.

On day one of the summit, Chris Danley, founder of Vitruvian Planning, spoke on "Second-Hand Cities: What They Are and How to Win Them Back." He made the case that just like second-hand smoke can have negative effects on health and longevity, so can poorly designed cities with insufficient active transportation infrastructure. He challenged current cultural norms like large parking lots, unsafe sidewalks and bike lanes, and disconnected neighborhoods and called for a shift in community planning and design. To view Chris's presentation slides, click HERE.

Mark Fenton, one of the nation's leading walkability experts, spoke on day two of the summit. He addressed the topic "Pilots-to-Policy: An Approach to Build More Connected Communities." He acknowledged that many communities want to build safer, more active infrastructure but often feel constrained by a lack of funding. He shared examples of communities around the nation using a pilots-to-policy approach to overcome funding limitations. With this approach, a community pilots a small, inexpensive, and temporary solution to improve pedestrian safety, gathers data about its effectiveness, then uses that data to justify and secure additional funding. To view Mark's slide deck, click HERE.

The summit also featured a plenary panel on building healthy Utah communities featuring four local experts:

• Dirk Burton, Mayor of West Jordan
• Catherine Van Tassell, Director of Behavioral Health Consulting at GBS Benefits
• Stephanie Tomlin, Trails Division Director at UDOT
• Nick Duerksen, Land Development Director of The Point

The panel was moderated by Nick Jarvis, Chief Operating Officer of the Utah League of Cities and Towns. The session featured a Q&A, project updates, and practical advice on how to build healthier, more connected communities throughout the state of Utah.

Breakout Sessions

Throughout the summit, participants had the option to choose breakout sessions from the following three tracks:

• Active Communities: How to build communities that encourage physical activity and active transportation
• Healthy Communities: How to build communities to address the health needs of residents
• Connected Communities: How to build communities that promote strong social connection and easy navigation

In addition, participants could choose to attend an innovative workshop track titled Building Communities. During the workshops, local communities in Utah presented on real-world challenges, such as slowing down traffic on rural main streets or promoting social connection among senior populations in cold winter months. The participants were then divided into roundtables to discuss the challenges, combine their expertise, and offer practical solutions.

To view the breakout session agenda, click HERE.

To view the slide decks for each presentation, click HERE.

Active Transportation Tours

Perhaps one of the most exciting parts of the summit was the opportunity to sign up and participate in active transportation tours. Eight different tours were offered over the course of the two-day conference, ranging from a downtown Provo scooter tour, to a Utah Valley Express bus tour, to a tour featuring adaptive equipment. Every participant was offered water, a snack, and an expert guide for the experience.

Get Healthy Utah Celebration

On the last day of the conference, Get Healthy Utah held a special luncheon to celebrate its ten-year anniversary! First organized by Former Lt . Governor Greg Bell, Get Healthy Utah has spent the last decade working hard to promote a healthier and more connected state. During the luncheon, Get Healthy Utah's Executive Director, Alysia Ducuara, presented on the organization's achievements and shared a celebratory video. Chet Loftis, Board Chair of Get Healthy Utah, followed her remarks with a report on Get Healthy Utah's future direction. Last, Former Governor Gary Herbert spoke to the importance of building a healthier Utah and presented Greg Bell with the Champion of Health Award, acknowledging his groundbreaking work to found Get Healthy Utah and his career-long dedication to promoting a healthier and more livable state for all.

Conclusion

The Connected Communities Summit was an innovative effort to pull together community leaders from diverse sectors and rally around the shared vision of building a healthier, more connected Utah. We are pleased to share that with over 400 attendees and two days of cutting-edge presentations, it was a great success! We would like to offer a heartfelt thank you to our partners, Move Utah and Bike Utah, for helping to make this one-of-a-kind event a reality.