Karen Daniels’ husband used to fly airplanes and would sometimes remind her that velocity is irrelevant without direction.
Daniels, vice president of nursing services at Halifax Regional Medical Center in Roanoke Rapids, references this principle in describing her community’s past efforts at improving the health and well-being of its residents.
It distresses the people of Halifax County to be ranked 99th in the state for health outcomes (ahead of only Columbus County) in the Robert Woods Johnson Foundation’s 2014 County Ranking’s & Roadmaps. People were doing good things. Halifaxians have always been eager to help one another out, Daniels said, and a number of organizations and clusters of citizens were taking their own measures toward improved community health.