New community wellness coordinator aims to make Howard County healthier

That’s what he’s been trying to do since December when he was hired on as the Howard County Community Wellness Coordinator.

Messersmith’s job is a first-of-its-kind position created by the Purdue Extension Nutrition Education Program, which offers free, informal educational programs to low-income families on topics such as nutrition, meal planning and managing food resources.

The Howard County Extension Office currently offers those classes. Now, Messersmith is doing what he can to make it easier for low-income families to implement what they’ve learned.

“My job is to make it easier to make the healthier choice,” he said. “In Howard County, the healthy choice should be the easy choice.”

But Messersmith’s efforts go far beyond just helping those involved in the Extension’s Nutrition Education Program.

He said his aim is to coordinate efforts to implement systematic changes to the city’s and county’s policy, transportation systems and environment that will make it easier for the entire community to get healthy.

An example? The nutrition program teaches people how to cook a tasty meal using fresh fruits and vegetables. Messersmtih said his job is to take that one step further, and increase the locations where fruits and vegetables are sold in areas where low-income families can purchase them with Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits.

He said he’s already identified areas in the city where buying fresh fruits and vegetables is next to impossible if you don’t own a car. Messersmith said he considers the city’s south side a “food desert” that doesn’t have a grocery store or supermarket where someone could pick up a bag of apples or carrots.

That’s something he hopes to change by talking to local convenience stores and encouraging them to carry a selection of fruits and vegetables.

“It would be a great resource for people, especially kids, who could come and grab a banana instead of a candy bar,” Messersmith said. “They do sell a lot more than you might think, and they’re fairly inexpensive.”

Beyond increasing accessibility to fruits and vegetables, Messersmith is also looking at ways to increase bus routes to make it easier to get to the grocery store and increasing opportunities for physical activity across the city.

But the exact details on how Messersmith plans to make the county healthier are still pending. He said he’s currently putting together an action team made up of local community members to help complete an assessment of the county’s health needs.

“We’re trying to find out what’s happening in the county right now so we know the areas that we need to improve upon,” Messersmith said. “You can’t really make changes until you know what you need to focus on.”

But according to local health data, there’s plenty that needs changed.

County Health Rankings and Roadmaps, which publishes health data for counties across the country, reports that 36 percent of Howard County adults are obese compared to 25 percent nationally. On top of that, 30 percent of adults are inactive, which is 10 percent higher than the national average.

In total, Howard County is ranked 57 out the state’s 92 counties for health outcomes, and 83 for healthy behavior.

Messersmith said there are lots of positive things happening in the city that are making the community healthier, like the new downtown YMCA and the construction of more city trails. Projects like that have contributed to the county dropping from 68 in the ranking in 2014 to 57 this year.

“The ball’s already rolling here,” he said. “The city is heading in the right direction. Now, it’s about following up with some of those ideas and continuing to head in the right direction. That’s what I want to help with.”

Messersmith’s job isn’t unique to Howard County. In fact, Purdue Extension has hired 31 people just like him to represent and engage every county in Indiana, and they’re hiring 10 more in June.

Melissa Maulding, director of the Extension’s Nutrition Education Programs, said that kind that push to create healthy communities across the state is nearly unprecedented in its scope.

“I’m not sure there’s ever been a time where we’ve added this quantity of staff to focus on one specific issue,” she said. “This new component has an enormous capacity to make huge changes at the grassroots level. It’s an opportunity unlike any other. It’s an exciting time for the Extension.”

Maulding said Indiana is in desperate need of that kind of focused effort on improving health, considering the state ranks as one of the most unhealthy in the country. According to America's Health Rankings, Indiana places 41 nationally.

Messersmith said the idea of having a dedicated health specialist representing and working with every county is unique, and it’s a position he hopes he can use to make a big impact on his part of the state in Kokomo and the surrounding area.

“For most people or groups who are working to improve community health, it’s something they do on the side or just a few hours a week,” he said. “But this is what I was hired to do every single day. I feel there’s a strong need for someone who organizes all these efforts.”

And it’s organizing efforts that will make his job successful, Messersmith said. At the end of the day, it will take leaders from all parts of the community to come together to make the county healthier, he said.

“I want this to be a collaboration of efforts … and I’ll help out where I can,” Messersmith said.