CLEVELAND - Cuyahoga County Executive Ed FitzGerald today announced Lakewood as the overall winner of the Inaugural Community Health Challenge, with the highest overall point total amongst participating communities. A total of 9 communities participated in the Community Health Challenge, in addition to taking advantage of resources provided by challenge partners.

“We are excited that communities are valuing the importance of health and wellness and have taken advantage of the Community Health Challenge and the resources that it provides,” said FitzGerald. “The participation from the communities is essential as they can now educate their municipal employees and residents to ensure that we continue to grow together as a healthy region.”

The Community Health Challenge, a countywide competition to drive improvements to health and well-being across Cuyahoga County, which ranked 65th out of Ohio’s 88 counties in the 2014 County Health Rankings.

In addition to the overall winner for the challenge, Lakewood won in the category of active living, and tied with Cleveland for the healthy eating category. Awards are also being presented to Euclid for the highest points in the tobacco free and most improved categories.

Each of the participating municipalities had the opportunity to answer questions on a Challenge Checklist that indicated whether they have implemented various policies, guidelines, or activities in their municipal workplace or local community. Communities also had the opportunity to improve their scores by working with the county on implementing new health and wellness policies.

12 institutional partners provided technical assistance, access to resources, educational materials, incentives, or a Community Coach. Partners included: the Academy of Medicine of Cleveland and Northern Ohio, American Cancer Society, Bike Cleveland, Cleveland-Cuyahoga County Food Policy Coalition, Cuyahoga Community College, Cuyahoga County Board of Health, ease@work, Greater Cleveland Sports Commission, First Suburbs Consortium, MetroHealth System, Prevention Research Center for Healthy Neighborhoods at CWRU, and University Hospitals.