Mayor's Wellness Campaign
Mayor's Wellness Campaign:
Providing New Jersey communities with the tools for change
It costs more than $2.3 billion a year to pay for medical problems related to obesity. In New Jersey, 55 percent of the population is obese or overweight.
To address this critical issue and encourage healthy living and wellness, NJHCQI created the Mayor's Wellness Campaign to equip the state's mayors with the tools they need to develop and implement active-living initiatives in their communities. The campaign's ultimate goal is to improve health and reduce skyrocketing health care costs.
The program provides mayors with a "toolbox" of workable, user-friendly, and inexpensive programs that they can put to work in their communities.
NJHCQI has partnered with the New Jersey State League of Municipalities (www.njslom.org) to administer this program, and to date it has been launched in more than 200 communities.
Major funding for the program has been provided by Aetna and BeneCard, with additional funding provided by the New Jersey Department of Transportation, St. Francis Hospital, Robert Wood Johnson Hospital-Hamilton, Johnson & Johnson, Pennoni Associates, Pfizer, and Bayville Holdings, LLC. In addition, during the initial research and development stages of the Mayors Wellness Campaign, the Voorhees Transportation Center at Rutgers University, the Regional Plan Association, and the Ramapo College Nursing Program provided instrumental support.