Social Belonging Needed in County

This summer, while working on Jefferson County's Community Health Assessment (CHA) and subsequent Community Health Improvement Plan (CHIP), two of Keith Hammonds's articles in The Monitor piqued my attention. His comment, "I'd love to see the county Health Department create a "director of community belonging" ("Belonging and civic life in America," June 19), made me stop and think about how we could make that happen. A sense of belonging and connectedness is a protective factor in our health and well-being.

The follow-up article was a conversation with Julia Hotz, author of the new book The Co...