Despite being several years out of the 2009 economic recession, Kentucky continues to lag behind other areas of the United States in household economic indicators, including personal income, population living below the poverty line, and unemployment rates. For instance, the percentage of children living in poverty has risen to 36% over the past two years. Along with a less than ideal financial outlook, health has continued to be a critical issue in Kentucky. Kentucky rates 47th out of all states in overall health. The state is plagued with health issues including high rates of smoking, obesity, and preventable hospitalizations. As part of the Managing in Tough Times Initiative, 3 County Cooperative Extension Offices hosted the Small Steps to Health and Wealth Online Challenge during the 2017/2018 programming year.

Small Steps to Health and Wealth (SSHW) is a national extension program designed to encourage participants to make positive behavior changes to simultaneously improve their health and personal finances. The SSHW program consists of two main sections: a discussion of 20 similarities between health and personal finance issues and 10 suggested behavior change strategies that can be applied to either area of life. The impact of health on finances and finances on health is also explored. The program concludes with a discussion of seven key health and wealth success factors: attitude, automation, awareness/knowledge, control, environment, goals, and time.

The online challenge is a six-week program that allows participants to track the daily choices they make related to nutrition, physical activity, and personal finances. It has been well documented that when people monitor their behavior and measure how they’re doing, they are often inspired to do better and achieve positive results. 19 consumers participated in the 2017/2018 online challenges.

As part of the challenge, total participant outcomes include:
•Consuming at least 179 cups of fruits and vegetables
•Exercised at least 6,210 minutes or 103.5 hours.
•Choosing to drink water instead of a sugar-sweetened beverage occurred 240 times
•Learning something new related to health was reported 122 times
•Saved or invested $380
•Tracked more than 1,500,000 steps or 750 miles
•Tracking daily expenditures was reported 212 times
•Ate at least one meal prepared at home instead of eating out 196 times, saving approximately $980.
•Learned something new related to personal finance, was reported 102 times