Get Healthy Utah News and Blog

April 28th 2025

Get Healthy Utah, in conjunction with the Utah League of Cities and Towns, is pleased to announce the newest Healthy Utah Community designees. Five cities and towns qualified this spring: Koosharem, P...

March 5th 2025

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 Aquariu...

January 16th 2025

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...

December 16th 2024

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 heal...

October 21st 2024

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 C...

August 28th 2024

Implementing a Milers Morning Program in Schools Written by Susanne Creer, Physical Education Specialist at Terra Linda Elementary School Milers is a voluntary morning before school walk/jog progr...

July 18th 2024

This spring, Get Healthy Utah partnered with the Utah Foundation and Guiding Our Growth to host the first-ever Healthy Communities Roadshow! The roadshow, which ran from March to May 2024, consist...

May 31st 2024

Alysia Ducuara Alysia Ducuara is the Executive Director for Get Healthy Utah. Springtime means conference and event season at Get Healthy Utah! From visiting with our parks and recreation champion...

April 30th 2024

Trilby Cox Trilby Cox is Co-Executive Director for Bike Utah, a Utah-based nonprofit. Bike Utah is partnering with Get Healthy Utah and Move Utah for the Connected Communities Summit this fall. Bi...

April 18th 2024

The Healthy Utah Community designation is valid for three years. To qualify for redesignation, communities must complete the following: Submit a new letter of commitment Continue to hold health...

April 18th 2024

Get Healthy Utah, in conjunction with the Utah League of Cities and Towns, is pleased to announce the newest Healthy Utah Community designees. Six cities and towns qualified this spring: Mapleton, Ore...

March 14th 2024

Get Healthy Utah partnered with the Utah Worksite Wellness Council and Utah Community Builders to host the second annual Utah Business of Health Event! The event took place on February 7th, 2024 at th...

March 7th 2024

Chet Loftis R. Chet Loftis is the Managing Director of PEHP Health & Benefits, a public sector health plan that covers over 170,000 members. He is also the new Board Chair for Get Healthy Utah. Go...

January 17th 2024

Morgan Hadden Morgan is the Program Coordinator for Get Healthy Utah. She graduated from Utah State University with a B.S. and M.P.H in Health Education and Promotion. Chances are, your city or t...

January 2nd 2024

Greg Bell Greg Bell is the outgoing Get Healthy Utah Board Chair. Greg previously served as president of the Utah Hospitals Association and lieutenant governor for Utah. In 2014, a group of us cre...

November 3rd 2023

Cindy Nelson Cindy is an Extension Associate Professor in Beaver County Utah with responsibilities in Family and Consumer Sciences and 4-H. She loves the people she serves, and the variety of progra...

October 17th 2023

Get Healthy Utah held its annual Stakeholder Retreat this October at the Viridian Event Center in West Jordan. This year’s theme was “Connection: Building a Culture of Health.” Topics included the con...

September 26th 2023

Devynne Andrews, JD Devynne Andrews is the Communications Coordinator for Get Healthy Utah. Recently, the Get Healthy Utah staff attended an advance screening of UnCharitable, a documentary about...

September 5th 2023

Get Healthy Utah, in conjunction with the Utah League of Cities and Towns, is pleased to announce the newest Healthy Utah Community designees. Four cities and towns qualified this fall: Coalville, Hol...

August 4th 2023

Dr. Amy Locke Amy Locke is the Chief Wellness Officer for the University of Utah Health, executive director of the University of Utah Health Resiliency Center, Professor of Family and Preventive Med...

July 31st 2023

Elisa Soulier Elisa Soulier is the Vice Chair for the Get Healthy Utah Board. She works as Director of Health and Wellbeing at Castell. She focuses on delivering more high value holistic care for pa...

July 17th 2023

Jennifer Porter and Rachel Bowman Jennifer Porter, RDN, is a Health Program Coordinator, and Rachel Bowman is a Nutrition Coordinator for the Utah WIC program. Visit wic.utah.gov to learn more. Nu...

July 11th 2023

Key Takeaways: “Green streets” have more plants, soil, and water-friendly systems than traditional streets Originally, green streets were designed to capture rainwater locally Green streets al...

Cover for Utah Foundation Report

June 28th 2023

The Utah Foundation recently released a report, Healthy Communities: Advancing Wellness and Safety, focused on policy solutions for Utah communities to increase physical activity. The report is meant...

June 9th 2023

Get Healthy Utah held its annual Advisory Council this May. We want to thank everyone who attended and shared their ideas on how we can improve healthy eating and active living in Utah through system-...

Two adults and two kids doing pottery.

May 16th 2023

Key Takeaways: Utahns are in a mental health crisis and need the healing and social connection that arts and culture can deliver. The arts foster connection, support the healing process, and com...

Healthy Utah Community Logo

April 24th 2023

Get Healthy Utah, in conjunction with the Utah League of Cities and Towns, is pleased to announce the newest designees of the Healthy Utah Community award. Six cities and towns qualified this spring:...

Children Eating Lunch at School

April 19th 2023

Kathleen Britton Kathleen Britton, SNS has served as the Director of Child Nutrition Programs at the Utah State Board of Education, since February 2014. Ms. Britton began her nutrition work as a Die...

Kids at Recess

April 10th 2023

Kimberly Clevenger Kimberly Clevenger is an Assistant Professor in Kinesiology and Health Science at Utah State University, with a background in exercise physiology. Her research interests are in th...

School child with healthy school lunch

March 25th 2023

Greg Bell Greg Bell is the Get Healthy Utah Board Chair. Greg is president of the Utah Hospitals Association, and previously served as lieutenant governor for Utah. Recent research in Great Britai...

February 27th 2023

This February, Get Healthy Utah and the Utah Worksite Wellness Council held the Utah Business of Health event, with the theme “Good Health is Good Business.” Leaders from Utah businesses and insurance...

October 28th 2022

Get Healthy Utah held its annual Stakeholder Retreat this October in Salt Lake City, with the theme “Building Healthier Communities.” A variety of leaders attended to learn more about their common...

August 3rd 2022

Organization: Get Healthy Utah Contact: Alysia Ducuara, Executive Director Location: 2180 S 1300 E, Suite 440, Salt Lake City, UT 84106 Program Details: The mission of Get Healthy Utah is to c...

July 14th 2022

In June 2022, Get Healthy Utah offered mini-grants to cities and towns that want to provide their citizens with better opportunities for healthy living. Cities and towns could apply for up to $5,000 t...

October 13th 2021

Each year, Get Healthy Utah gives Partnership Awards to organizations that have collaborated across sectors to significantly improve community health. This year at the Fall 2021 Get Healthy Utah Stake...

October 13th 2021

The Fall 2021 Get Healthy Utah Stakeholder Retreat was held in-person on October 7th in Salt Lake City. Attendees represented various sectors that have an upstream impact on community health, such as...

August 1st 2021

On June 30, 2021, Get Healthy Utah held a virtual information session on type 2 diabetes, the National Diabetes Prevention Program (National DPP), and the importance of Medicaid coverage. During the i...

June 2nd 2021

The Annual Get Healthy Utah Stakeholder Retreat was held virtually on May 5, 2021. The event focused on the One Utah Roadmap. Lt. Governor Deidre Henderson provided the keynote address. The closing s...

March 10th 2021

What is a wellness policy? A wellness policy creates a safe and healthy environment for students and staff to practice lifelong healthy habits. The school community (which includes parents, students...

November 3rd 2020

Social and economic conditions where we live, work, and play can impact our health status. These include income, affordable housing, safe places to walk, healthy food access, discrimination, and healt...

August 20th 2020

Get Healthy Utah is proud to have partnered with Comagine Health, Intermountain Healthcare, Utah Department of Health, and University of Utah Health to host the free virtual summit for worksites Impro...

August 4th 2020

Jeff Hummel, MD, MPH Medical Director, Health Care Informatics, Comagine Health Meredith Agen, MBA Vice President, Health Care Analytics, Comagine Health The COVID-19 pandemic has seemed both distan...

June 20th 2020

Guest Post by Brett McIff Brett McIff, PhD is the Physical Activity Coordinator for the EPICC Program at the Utah Department of Health. His research has focused on the perception of the built envir...

April 21st 2020

Rural communities often have poorer health outcomes than non-rural communities. This is due, in part, to barriers to accessing healthy food, opportunities for physical activity, and mental health reso...

April 15th 2020

A new, and timely, report from the Utah Foundation examines trends and challenges related to teleworking. Findings include: Teleworking seems to have a positive effect on productivity and employee...

March 24th 2020

Gyms, recreational facilities, schools, and extracurricular activities are cancelled. While we are all doing our part to stay home and maintain proper social distancing, it is important to be physical...

March 18th 2020

To help in preventing the spread of COVID-19, Utah schools are dismissed for a soft closure until March 27th. What does this mean for school meals? On average, 50% of Utah K-12 students participat...

February 20th 2020

Guest Blog Post By, Kate Wheeler, Child Nutrition Specialist, Utah State Board of Education Kate works on farm to fork and local procurement initiatives. Kate has an MPH from Emory University. Prior...

January 14th 2020

The Utah State Board of Education has provided Best Practice for Recess Guidelines. While not mandated, the guidelines support the Utah State Board of Education’s Strategic Plan Safe and Healthy Schoo...

Spring 2025 Healthy Utah Community Designees Announced

Get Healthy Utah, in conjunction with the Utah League of Cities and Towns, is pleased to announce the newest Healthy Utah Community designees. Five cities and towns qualified this spring: Koosharem, Parowan, Springville, Taylorsville, and West Jordan.

Seven cities were redesignated: Blanding, Centerville, Draper, Manti, Nephi, Springdale, and Woods Cross. You can read about what each of these cities did at https://gethealthyutah.org/healthy-utah-community/designated-communities.

Koosharem

The Town of Koosharem is dedicated to meeting the needs of their small community and works to enhance the lives and health of their community members both young and old. They promote active living in young people with their free volleyball camp for girls aged 5-13 and plan to offer additional camps and clinics for additional sports, genders, and ages. They increase access to healthy eating through their free canning, freeze-drying, and bread-making classes for community members. Koosharem also offered three 6-month mental health resiliency classes to help community members overcome mental health challenges.  

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Parowan

Parowan City serves the community by providing activities and programs that bring families together to support healthy, fun interactions. Their four parks and community pool provide gathering places for families and communities, and their citizens and Parowan Prevention Coalition are very active in supporting an active and healthy lifestyle. From their youth sports leagues and four new pickleball courts to their twice-monthly food bank handouts and safe medication disposal site, Parowan is dedicated to year-round health of all community members.

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Springville

Springville City is committed to community health and well-being and offers a variety of services to meet the needs of community members. Their Fitness Fair and Silver Sneakers classes provide options to live active lifestyles, they try to ensure access to healthy foods by offering a summer lunch program for kids with the Utah Food Bank, and they offer Teen Mental Health Classes and free QPR trainings through the local library. The Healthy Springville Coalition is actively involved in representing community needs and providing Springville citizens with a healthy place to live.

Springville art therapy

Taylorsville

The City of Taylorsville has made great strides in ensuring every resident has access to healthy food, opportunities to be active, and resources to support mental health. They provide youth sports programs, a popular community 5k, new trail systems, an active farmers market, a food bank to help those in need, beautification of local parks, and a variety of community educational events. 

Taylorsville Dayzz June 29, 2019. Utah Symphony, midway, food, booths, crowds.(Keith Johnson)

West Jordan

West Jordan City and their active health coalition are dedicated to creating opportunities for community members to live healthy and active lives. Focusing on holistic health, West Jordan offers seminars, events, and resources for residents to have a positive health experience. Offerings include many walking events on the Jordan River Trail, a produce swap at the monthly Community Market, support for the JSD Principal Pantry, mental health trainings for the police department, and daily lunch at the West Jordan Senior Center.

Bike with the Mayor

Utah Business of Health Event 2025

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.

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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.

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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.

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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!

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Guest Post: Social Connections Literature Review

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

2024 City and Town Leaders Survey

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:HUCInterest

  • 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.

HUCPositiveImpactHUCHelpfulHUCIncreaseUnderstanding

  • CityGovtRoleHealth 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.FundingBarrier

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.