Community Health and Wellbeing Week happens each year during the first week of October and is being coordinated by the Canadian Association of Community Health Centres and by the Association of Ontario Health Centres (AOHC), which represents Ontario's 75 Community Health Centres, 10 Aboriginal Health Access Centres, 15 Community Family Health Teams and 8 Nurse Practitioner-Led Clinics. These centres are all governed by community members who ensure services promote health and wellbeing in ways that respond to the specific needs of the diverse communities being served.
 
Each of the Community Health and Wellbeing Week special events being organized across Ontario will highlight the importance of shifting the conversation about health and health care. "Treating illness is important. But we need to focus on the bigger picture and shift attention to the root causes of sickness and poor health," says Adrianna Tetley, AOHC Chief Executive Officer.
 
As things now stand, far too many people experience avoidable illnesses because Ontario's fragmented health care remains poorly equipped to address the most important determinants of health--- determinants such as access to good nutrition, housing, social supports, employment, income, education. These have a much bigger impact on health and wellbeing than what the health care system can offer.
 
During the week, organizers will showcase the work that is being done in Ontario's community-governed primary health organizations to address the broad determinants that contribute to health and wellbeing. Click here to see a full listing of events.
 
Community Health & Wellbeing Week also shines the spotlight on the Canadian Index of Wellbeing which can serve as powerful tool to shift to a wider focus on the root causes of health.

The Index is one of the world's leading initiatives to measure societal progress. It uses eight domains to measure quality of life categories: healthy population, education, leisure and culture, environment, community vitality, living standards, time use and democratic engagement.  
 
At Monday's launch event, AOHC representatives will describe how the week fits into a larger initiative which involves how Ontario's Community Health Centres are partnering with the CIW to measure and improve health and wellbeing in Ontario. This work is generously funded by the Ontario Trillium Foundation, an agency of the Government of Ontario.

For more information on the Community Health and Wellbeing initiative and efforts to improve the eight quality of life categories identified by the CIW please visit:  communityhealthandwellbeing.org 

Click here to see a full listing of events.