Extension ServiceFamily & Community Health
About us
Every day, our Extension Family and Community Health (FCH) team is working to achieve the mission of the Extension Service and promote healthy communities, families, and individuals. We aspire to be a go-to health promotion partner for Oregonians. We partner in communities to promote healthy nutrition, food safety and security, physical activity, mental/behavioral health and well-being, emergency preparedness, community resilience, and more. Our faculty and staff offer an expanded set of public health and human sciences programs spanning individual-level education and policy, systems, and environmental approaches. Our affiliation with College of Public Health and Human Sciences facilitates collaboration with other public health researchers, offering creative solutions to improve health outcomes.
Our work
Our statewide efforts span the topics:
- Food preservation
- Food safety
- Food security
- Emergency preparedness
- Healthy aging
- Healthy communities
- Healthy eating
- Healthy families
- Healthy homes
- Physical activity
As with many health-focused organizations, we adapt our work as the conditions in which people are born, grow, live, work and age evolve. Lessening the impact of negative social determinants of health are critical to minimizing health inequities.
Our program goals prioritize people by providing informational, behavioral and support strategies, so they can make healthy and safe choices. It also focuses on place with environmental and collaborative strategies, systems and policy interventions, and capacity building for healthy and safe environments.
Our impact
Our programs and partnerships
- Better Bones & Balance
- Blue Zone Projects®
- Coast to Forest (Mental health promotion in rural Oregon)
- EFNEP (Expanded Food and Nutrition Education Program)
- EXCITE (Extension Collaboration on Immunization Teaching and Engagement)
- Family & Community Educators
- Master Food Preservers
- Nutrition Education Program
- Oregon Child Care Research Partnership (OCCRP)
- Oregon Parenting Education Collaborative (OPEC)
- SNAP-Ed
- SNAP Outreach
- StrongPeople
- Walk With Ease
OSU developed resources
- BEPA Toolkit (Balanced Energy Physical Activity Toolkit)
- Food Hero
- GROW Healthy Kids and Communities
- HEAL MAPPS™
- SPAN-ET (School Physical Activity and Nutrition Environment Tool)
- WAVE~Ripples for Change (Obesity Prevention in Active Youth)
Oregon communities strive for health and longevity in Blue Zones Project: Residents get on board to encourage healthier people and place.
