About

Working at the community level promotes healthy living, helps prevent chronic diseases and brings the greatest health benefits to the greatest number of people in need. It also helps to reduce health gaps caused by differences in race and ethnicity, location, social status, income, and other factors that can affect health.

Chronic Disease: A Significant Public Health Threat

Chronic diseases—like heart disease, diabetes, and cancer—are leading causes of death and disability in the United States.

• Half of all adults in the United States have a chronic disease.
• 1 in 3 Americans has high blood pressure.
• 2 million heart attacks and strokes occur each year.
• 7 out of 10 deaths among Americans are caused by chronic disease.
• For every $1 spent on health care, 75 cents is spent on chronic disease and factors that increase their risk.

Chronic diseases and their risk factors affect some racial and ethnic groups more than others. For example, non-Hispanic blacks have the highest rates of obesity and are more likely than whites to have heart disease.

Community Health: Lasting Solutions for Disease Prevention and Health Promotion

CDC’s National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion (NCCDPHP) funds programs that help communities promote healthy behaviors where Americans live, learn, work, and play. The goal is to make lasting changes that reduce the major risk factors for chronic disease—tobacco use, lack of physical activity, and unhealthy eating.

Read more about current and past NCCDPHP community health programs:

• Comprehensive Approach to Good Health and Wellness in Indian Country (1421)
• National Implementation and Dissemination for Chronic Disease Prevention
• Partnerships to Improve Community Health (PICH)
• Programs to Reduce Obesity in High Obesity Areas to Boost Prevention
• Racial and Ethnic Approaches to Community Health (REACH)
• Sodium Reduction in Communities Program (SRCP)
• State and Local Public Health Actions to Prevent Obesity, Diabetes, and Heart Disease and Stroke (1422)
• Past Programs

Through these programs, we join with communities, states and territories, tribes and tribal organizations, universities, and federal and nongovernmental partners. These different organizations and individuals share a vision of a healthier America, through healthy communities.

Together, NCCDPHP community health programs reach hundreds of millions of Americans.

NCCDPHP programs offer funding support for community health efforts, but any community can take steps to make healthy living easier for its residents.