Healthy Families
Governor's initiative to ensure Alaska is the best place to raise a family
Overview
Governor Dunleavy’s Healthy Families initiative aims to make Alaska the healthiest and best place to raise a family. It emphasizes prevention and strong families as the foundation for a strong economy, built on three pillars: healthy beginnings, health care access, and healthy communities.
The initiative supports existing projects, funds new ones, using state and federal resources. Strategies include administrative actions, law changes, staffing and budget adjustments, and cross-agency collaboration.
Healthy beginnings
This pillar is the cornerstone of healthy families and prioritizes maternal and child health. It emphasizes preventative measures for youth, such as healthy diets and physical activity, and works toward expanding and improving childcare and after school programs.
Health care access
This pillar addresses behavioral and physical health care access, which is fundamental to healthy Alaskans and their families. It focuses on working with partners to create a robust and resilient health care workforce. It supports aging in place and establishes the Office of Health Savings within DOH to align how we pay for health care to achieve better outcomes and whole-person care.
Healthy communities
This pillar builds on existing efforts to create healthy workplaces and to increase safe and affordable housing. It will reduce the burden of infectious diseases such as tuberculosis and address chronic diseases by launching the Fresh Start Campaign to connect Alaskans to prevention programs.
Governor Dunleavy proposed $9.5 million dollars (UGF) in the FY 24 operating budget to launch Healthy Families activities within DOH. We are excited about this investment in the health and wellbeing of our Alaskan families.
