The Island County Board of Health (BOH) selected its first 21-member Community Health Advisory Board (CHAB) on March 8, 1993. The members, pictured at right, first met for an indoctrination seminar with the Island County Board of Health and staff members, and with members of the Washington State Department of Health on March 13, 1993.
CHAB was established to provide a community forum to assess the community's health concerns and needs, prioritize and recommend policy to address those concerns, and to assure that such policies attend to the community's needs. CHAB was further charged to address concerns in any area affecting health -- be it personal health, environmental health, poverty, homelessness, joblessness, abuse, or any other concern impacting community well-being -- and to advise the local Board of Health of measures requiring BOH or other community action.