A lab being set up at the Healthy Start Coalition Clinic in Century, Fl. Wednesday, April 1, 2015. (Michael Spooneybarger/ Pensacola Today)

Stuck.

That may be the word that best describes Escambia County's overall community health status.

For nearly two decades Escambia has been at or near the bottom of state community health scores for counties, most recently ranking 59th out of 67th.

And when compared to the state's 26 urban centers, the Pensacola-Escambia metro area typically ranks last in the most recent surveys.

Santa Rosa County fares much better, receiving an overall ranking of 12 out of 67 counties.

Community health rankings are compiled every few years by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, a non-profit that monitors community health in all 3,143 U.S. counties and parishes.

The Foundation's most recent study in 2012 looked at more than 230 indicators such as premature deaths, cancer and diabetes rates, obesity, incidences of disease and behavioral risk factors.

The 2012 study found that Escambia County had seen a serious lack of health status progress since the 2005 study.

Those results prompted a call to action by community leaders.

Led by Baptist Health Care and Sacred Heart Health Systems, the Partnership for a Healthy Community developed a new, more proactive game plan: Work closely with area businesses to improve employee health, and provide incentives and opportunities in the workplace to that end.

This ongoing strategy was the centerpiece of the Greater Pensacola Chamber's most recent Gopher Club meeting.

The group's keynote speaker was Megan McCarthy, director of BHC's Healthy Lives programs.

"Our strength in the Pensacola community is the quality of our hospitals," she said. "We have excellent hospitals and excellent physicians and nurses. But we can only react to those people who come through our doors."

In effect, McCarthy told the audience of more than 100 that the workplace is the frontline — and most fertile ground — for improving the community's overall health status.

To that end she listed seven, low-or-no-cost activities businesses can do to promote good employee health:

-- Get up from your desk and move about at least once every hour; take the stairs instead of the elevator; go to the farthest water fountain or bathroom in the building.

-- Create stress-free zones at the workplace where employees can relax. McCarthy said many workplace accidents are caused by stress.

-- Limit food choices at work. Provide healthy snacks as an option to sugar-heavy pastries and vending machine candies.

-- Hydrate, especially during the hot summer months.

-- Discourage smoking, promote state-sponsored anti-smoking programs, and provide incentives for employees to quit.

-- Set aside private areas within the workplace for mothers to breastfeed their babies. Health babies lower employee absenteeism.

-- Encourage and promote regular primary care visits by employees. This will help reduce use of crowded emergency rooms, and help prevent the occurrence of more serious health consequences.

"We're not going to improve our health ranking unless we all make a collective effort to foster employee wellness within the workplace," McCarthy said.