DE PERE, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) – A community organization, Wello, has the results back from a health survey taken last summer.
It looked at the overall well-being of residents in Brown County.
For the first time, Brown County residents are being asked about how they feel.
“Too frequently we’ve relied on data from outside our community or across the state without collecting the stories of our community,” said Jamie Lynch, executive director of St. Norbert’s Strategic Research Institute.
Wello connects different organizations throughout greater Green Bay to help improve the quality of life for its residents.
“Often times when we think of health we think of eating five fruits and vegetables a day, getting exercise, and sleep. What creates health for individuals in communities is much more broader than that,” said Natalie Bomstad, Wello executive director.
Bomstad tells FOX 11 the survey asked adults questions about physical health, relationships, psychological well being and lifestyle.
“Things like how economically secure you are, our housing situation things about our sense of belonging and connection to each other.”
The survey was open from July through August of last year. While only about 1,400 responses were submitted, Bomstad says some of their key findings are telling.
“Interestingly only a little less than a quarter of our community would be qualified as doing quote-unquote ‘well’ in terms of the survey we used, so that gives us a little indication that we have some work to do.”
Lynch says the results were also broken down by demographics that showed disparities between residents.
“What our results show is that people who have less education and people who are non-white don’t have the same high quality of life as opposed to people of higher education and people who are white in our community.”
Bomstad saysthey want to take the results and get into the community to improve the quality of life for people.
“I think it really gets to an opportunity for us to think about, what does it mean to create an inclusive community? How do we create a sense of belonging here so that no matter who you are you can come to this community and you can participate in this community in a way that improves your well being?” said Bomstad.
The survey will be redone every other year. The next one is will be out in the summer of 2021.
Find out more about the WELLO survey here.
