The National Framework for Health and Wellness: (Re)Framing the Work of Cooperative Extension for the Next Century

Abstract

Cooperative Extension is at a crossroads and has increasing opportunities to articulate its existing role and future growth in impacting the health and wellness of the individuals and communities it serves. This is important because the health outcomes in the U.S. are poorer than any other developed nation, health expenditures are high, challenges with navigating the health system are immense, and opportunities to intervene and remove barriers to improving the nation’s health and wellness abound. This article provides suggestions as a follow-up to the reports featured in this special issue of the Journal of Human Sciences and Extension from the five Action Teams of the Extension Committee on Organization and Policy’s (ECOP) Health Implementation Team. The authors present the idea that, to achieve greater impact in health and wellness, Cooperative Extension must also consider its role as translators of our history and how that history is relevant to health-related work, how we can engage with other health-related organizations, by embracing a partner perspective, and by submitting Extension’s efforts to the review of other disciplines.