Living a healthy lifestyle has become much simpler and more fun thanks to a large number of community programs offered by St. Luke’s Miners Campus in Coaldale.

From programs offered in preschools to programs at senior centers, the hospital network’s community team is dedicated to making sure anyone interested in living a longer, healthier life has the help they need.Hospitals, by their very nature, cater to the sick and injured, but there’s more to keeping patients healthy than just treating them and sending them home. Recognizing the need to do more, St. Luke’s trustees created the Bethlehem Partnership For a Healthy Community in 1996, hoping to improve the overall health and quality of life for the communities they serve. Today, that program is used as a national model; has been expanded in various forms to all St. Luke’s campuses; and has more than 200 community partners representing local business, government, education, social service and community organizations. It even generated its own department and dedicated employees, the Community Health and Preventive Medicine Department of St. Luke’s Hospital.Members of the department meet monthly to discuss the progress being made, consider what is working and what isn’t, and make suggestions on ways to improve programs.Micah Gursky, St. Luke’s Miners Rural Health Clinic administrator, sees the health outreach program as separate, but connected, to providing care.“St. Luke’s has various community outreach programs, each one specific to an individual campus. The outreach programs provide our communities with the opportunity to live healthier, but residents don’t know about these programs unless we meet them where they are.”Rosemarie Lister, community health liaison manager, sees education for all age groups as vitally important to good health.“It’s never too early to start healthy living habits, which is why our partnerships with Head Start and the Panther Valley School District are so exciting. We want to help improve the health of our communities, but we can’t do it alone. That only happens when everyone works together.”Laurie Price, St. Luke’s Community Health Nurse Navigator, said the Coaldale facility’s community programs began in 2013 with a diabetes support program after the disease was found to be a top local issue through a rural community survey.“The survey lists the top five health concerns,” Price said.“In 2013, the three most important issues were found to be diabetes, the use of tobacco products and a literacy issue.”Price also coordinates the “Live Your Life” program, which includes a tobacco cessation program.“Many chronic diseases are related to the use of tobacco, which is much greater in rural communities according to survey results.”The literacy issue is being addressed at each St. Luke’s campus through an Adopt-A-School program. The Coaldale campus adopted the Panther Valley School District and hired Kerri Quick to coordinate efforts.Quick helps manage a program which connects students to doctors, reaching hundreds of students through reading programs, mental health and substance abuse prevention programs, and an annual health carnival.Quick said, “We offer different programs to students in grades 1 through 12. Helping them learn how to make good decisions develops life skills they can use throughout their lives.”Other programsOne of the newest programs in the effort to boost literacy is the Little Free Library. A kiosk has been placed at the hospital, located to the east of St. Luke’s Miners Emergency Room doors. The pop-up library concept can be found worldwide. There are as many different variations as there are people interested in providing others with the opportunity to read a good book.Coaldale’s is a kiosk on a post. It contains a number of different books, free for anyone interested in reading. It’s based on the “take a book, return a book” philosophy. Selections are always changing as the books are donated.The Diabetes Support group meets every other month at the hospital.This month’s meeting was also the Annual Diabetes Day, held Nov. 12 at the Tamaqua YMCA. It included a cooking demonstration, taste testing and guest speaker Shelly Sassaman, certified physician assistant. The group usually meets at the hospital. For more information, call

570-645-8107.A Neurological Support group provides help to survivors, families or friends of people who have suffered strokes or been diagnosed with diseases such as multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s disease, etc. For more information, call

570-645-8197.There’s also an eight-week course designed to help decrease the number of falls for older people.“A Matter of Balance” helps people view falls as controllable, sets goals for increasing activity, suggests changes to reduce fall risks at home and encourages exercise to increase strength and balance. Call

570-645-1811 for more information.Get Your Tail on the Trail is a weekly walking program held at the Panther Valley Stadium during the summer months. It’s a noncompetitive way to encourage people to stay healthy by doing something as simple as walking. The program is part of a larger St. Luke’s Health Network initiative that was originally held on the Delaware and Lehigh National Heritage Corridor.Prepping for the futureThe 2016 Community Health Needs Assessment lists these five top priorities: improving patient access to care; promoting healthy lifestyles and preventing chronic disease; improving/mental/behavioral health; improving child health; and improving elder health. The team already has some programs in place to deal with these issues and is working on expanding them and creating others as needed.There’s also a growing concern about the increased use of heroin and opioid drugs in the hospital’s area, as well as throughout the state.St. Luke’s is partnering with several prevention education groups to offer HOPE, a Heroin and Opioid Prevention Education program, from 6:30 to 8 p.m., Dec. 8, in the Panther Valley Junior/Senior High School auditorium.Gursky says the community-based programs, offered to the public for free, are important to St. Luke’s for one simple reason, “These are our patients. These are our people.”