Invercargill has been included in the Healthy Families New Zealand initiative for all the wrong reasons.
Like the other nine centres selected, from the Far North district to one of Christchurch's poorer areas, it has higher-than-average obesity levels, deprivation levels and rates of preventable chronic diseases such as diabetes and heart disease. A higher-than-average number of Invercargill residents smoke - a known risk factor in many health problems.
Over a generation, there has been a noticeable shift in community attitudes towards some of the big social issues such as drinking and driving, wearing seat belts and the placement of poker machines. The number of people smoking has declined by 23% between the 2006 and 2013 censuses.
That showed things could change when a community worked together, Healthy Families national programme manager Michelle Palmer said during a visit to Invercargill last month.
''In Tolaga Bay [north of Gisborne], the whole community rallied and decided they wanted to eradicate pokie machines in their community, and they have done that.''
She is hoping the same sort of attitudinal shift will also bring about healthier communities for the long term.
''With Healthy Families, it is not about the Government saying what needs to happen in each community, because each community is vastly different. It's about the community saying, `What do we want to do to make that positive change for the future?'''Because obesity and chronic disease hasn't arisen overnight - it's a complex problem which has taken decades to take hold, and it's not going to go away overnight either.''
Healthy Families was based on the successful Healthy Together programme, which had been running in Victoria, Australia, for two and a-half years, she said.
''[Healthy Together] is showing a shift in the community. It is too early in two and a-half years to say where that shift is in terms of chronic disease prevention, but it really is demonstrating a shift in attitudes towards health behaviours.''
The 10 programmes in this country covered almost one quarter of the population, she said.
Staff at all the programmes had only just begun their work and were ''laying the foundations''.
''What the lead providers are doing is taking stock of what's in their community - mapping everything from what's there and the organisations and what they are already doing, to where the alcohol and takeaway outlets are.
''We very much expect Healthy Families to be highly visible from about March/April next year.''
Jared Cappie, who was Sport Southland's active lifestyles manager, took over as Invercargill programme manager last month. He said three more staff would be recruited from this month onwards.
