“Healthy Communities” has been preliminarily selected as the 2020 Arizona Town Hall topic. Arizona Town Hall’s annual meeting in June was the setting for its membership to recommend what focus to pursue in 2020. Following presentations by three finalists, membership used breakout sessions to dialogue the merits of each subject. Using a points-based tally, “Healthy Communities” was voted in by a significant margin.

It’s an idea whose time has come. Recognition is growing that zip code is our single most telling predictor of life expectancy. With that recognition of place’s influence comes a realization that we’ve got to bring a breadth of resources to the task. More and more decision makers statewide are embracing the basic principle that we can be more successful by partnering across sectors like housing, food, transportation and education to improve well-being and health – zipcode by zipcode.

We are grateful to Arizona Town Hall and its members. Pending final board approval of the topic, we look forward to an exciting year of Town Hall convenings, dialogue, discovery and reporting in 2020.