Dear Partner in Public Health:

Take a moment to stop and look around… do you see public health in practice? It is easy for a public health professional to recognize all the ways in which public health affects our daily lives. But for the average Mainer, busy with his or her own daily life, public health isn’t as obvious. Maine Public Health Association (MPHA) invites you to work together with us to bring public health to the forefront of our neighbors’ minds!

Every year during the first full week of April, the Maine Public Health Association joins with other public health entities across the nation in celebrating National Public Health Week (NPHW). The 2009 NPHW theme is Building the Foundation for a Healthy America. Maine Public Health Association’s goal during this week is to raise awareness of the many ways public health touches our daily life all around us through
embarking on a campaign to ‘tag’ examples of public health in our communities. To achieve this goal we have chosen to implement a campaign titled This is Public Health.

This is Public Health campaign was designed by the American Schools of Public Health to let people know that public health affects them on a daily basis and that we are only as healthy as the world we live in. The campaign has already seen great results with over 30,000 stickers laced and photographed in strategic locations and they have invited other public health entities to join in. Its easy to order free stickers from their website www.thisispublichealth.org and to place them around your community.

We hope that you will join the Maine Public Health Association in our effort to tag public health throughout our communities in preparation for NPHW 2009.

- As you place your stickers throughout your community, document it with a digital camera.
- Send them to us at info@mainepublichealth.org by April 1 so that we may post them on our website and/or on our Facebook group page.
- Finally, please join the MPHA, legislators, and other public health professionals on April 9th at 1pm at the State House Welcome Center for the NPHW press event where our top five favorite This is Public Health photos will be displayed.

Each day of NPHW we will be sending state-wide press releases asking Mainers to be on the lookout for these stickers in workplaces, schools, and homes across Maine. Don’t miss out on the opportunity to highlight public health in action in your community!

For more information visit the following links:
Maine Public Health Association www.mainepublichealth.org/tiph  
National Public Health Week www.nphw.org  
This is Public Health www.thisispublichealth.org  

If you have any questions, comments or need more information please feel free to contact either of us!

Yours in health,

Jessica Begley, MPH
Marketing/Membership Committee Chair
BEGLEJ@mmc.org  
662.3619

Angela Westhoff, MA
NPHW liaison
awesthoff@mainedo.org  
623.1101