UK President: Kentucky’s health will determine its future. We have a plan to improve it. | Opinion

It’s one of the greatest challenges to a vibrant future for Kentucky: our health.

Health can certainly mean the treatment of illness. Perhaps even more urgent than treatment is the need to prevent illness from occurring in the first place.

Good health, in fact, is determined by medical and non-medical factors. Access to the best care close to home matters. But access to other supports and opportunities nearby also matters in determining quality of life and well-being — excellent schools, well-paid jobs, wellness centers and healthy foods, among others.

A strong and stable economy undergirds all of these critically important attributes. And there are abundant reasons for optimism. Our state’s population is increasing. Our economy is growing.

But the positive pace of change must accelerate. If our state is to meet its potential, then we must do more at this moment to improve multiple measures that speak to the overall sense of health in Kentucky.

At the University of Kentucky (UK), we’ve been asking ourselves what role we must play. Led by our Board of Trustees, we’ve established important goals.

First, we want to engage more with collaborators in every corner and community of the state. We know that the best solutions are most often found working with and in communities.

Second, in reaching out more to support and serve as a partner, we want to be the university working harder than any institution in the country to advance the health of our state.

It’s audacious. It’s also essential. Our Board of Trustees recently directed us to focus on four pillars of progress that will determine our success as a partner to:

1) Graduate more students aligned with the state’s priorities. We rank near the bottom in the country for the number of primary care physicians per 100,000 people. We face other critical care shortages, too — nursing, public health officials and other health professionals. We are adding capacity to care for more patients with advanced health needs. But we are also adding classroom space to educate and train more people to answer our state’s call.

2) Launch a new statewide network with partners that will foster community solutions to community challenges. The Advancing Kentucky Together Network will engage in partnerships across the state to address holistic health, workforce training and educational needs. Over the last two decades, we’ve worked with — and learned from — strong community providers to ensure that patients can stay close to home to receive the care they need. The same process can work in workforce training and education, too.

3) Expand the deep connections found in our Cooperative Extension Service to do even more in, with and for communities. UK’s extension offices are found in all 120 Kentucky counties. We can continue to channel their power to bring together schools, public health departments and other leaders to address community challenges.

4) Construct more space for research aimed at Kentucky’s biggest health challenges. Solutions to so many of the challenges we confront are found at the intersection of disciplines. World-class researchers working in teams across disciplines is how we make new discoveries. At UK, though, virtually every space for such work is full. We are aggressively planning to build the capacity necessary to strengthen our commitment to solving Kentucky’s health challenges.

We have economic opportunities with the potential for tremendous growth — auto manufacturing and batteries, health care, logistics and advanced manufacturing powered by advances in materials science.

Those efforts will only succeed if we have a large and highly skilled workforce, trained and healthy, living in vibrant communities. All of this is possible. It can happen with devoted partners, working in the community, for the community.

We know that ensuring a state that is healthier, wealthier and wiser tomorrow than it is today means we must become the institution that, more than any other, works with partners to do more for the health of the state we serve.

It’s time to accelerate our progress. It’s time to honor that promise for the state we serve today and what we know it can be tomorrow.

Eli Capilouto is the 12th president of the University of Kentucky.