It is Community Health Improvement Week and public health officials are encouraging people to focus on ways that could help them improve the health in their communities.

Dallas County Health Department Public Information Officer Ann Cochran says community health focuses on improving the entire system and what people and public health entities are doing or what they can do to improve overall health.

“You may in your own community know of things that could be helpful, for instance if the sidewalks in your community don’t lend themselves to easy walking or you have sidewalks that go nowhere those are things for you to think about, concentrate on during the Health Improvement Week. Not that you’ll get it all done in the same week but that you can focus on those things as goals for your community”

Cochran tells Raccoon Valley Radio some other examples include looking at how to better utilize bike trails in your community.

“If you can arrange bike trails so that folks in different neighborhoods can use them to go to the grocery store, go to the hardware store, that’s a much better system as far as our overall community health.”

Community Health Improvement Week runs from June 5th-11th.