healthy communities

Definitions of a Healthy Community
There are many definitions of a healthy community. The Healthy People 2010 strategy describes a healthy community as one which include those elements that enable people to maintain a high quality of life and productivity. Some of the elements described in Healthy People in Healthy Communities A Community Planning Guide Using Healthy People 2010, include access to health care services that focus on both treatment and prevention for all members of the community; a safe community; the presence of roads, schools, playgrounds, and other services to meet the needs of the people in that community; and a healthy community has a healthy and safe environment. The Centers for Disease Control defines healthy communities in its Designing and Building Healthy Places page as "A community that is continuously creating and improving those physical and social environments and expanding those community resources that enable people to mutually support each other in performing all the functions of life and in developing to their maximum potential."
(Definition extracted from a web page of the Municipal Research Center and Services of Washington)

2000 Community Profiles provide information about communities in Massachusetts (the most recent Census information is from 2000)

Boston (PDF) (click here if you do not have acrobat reader)
Brookline (PDF)
Chelsea (PDF)
Revere (PDF)
Winthrop (PDF)

For additional statistical information about Massachusetts Communities:
Massachusetts Community Health Information Profile (MassCHIP) site.
MassCHIP is the Massachusetts Department of Public Health's publicly available on-line interactive data warehouse. It contains 25 key public health related data sets including dataon health behaviors, vital statistics, hospitalizations, cancer, school enrollment/dropouts, children in foster care, reports of child abuse/neglect, unemployment, communicable diseases, MDPH program data and physician distribution by specialty.

For Massachusetts statewide healthy communities initiatives see Massachusetts Partnership for Healthy Communities