Beware of made-up words like “visioning” and “dialoguing.”

        They should come with a warning: These activities will be more complicated than necessary. They will generate many meetings and reports, which no one will readbecause of exhaustion from all the meetings. And in the end, the “vision” will be too broad and bland to accomplish anything, anyway.

        I could be wrong. But these perils came to mind when I heard the Northern Kentucky Independent District Health Department had just done some “visioning.”

        Uh-oh. The more I investigated, the murkier it got.

        “Visioning,” I learned, is part of MAPPing, which stands for “Mobilizing for Action through Planning and Partnerships.”

        The district started MAPPing after six years of APEXing, which stood for “Assessment Protocol for Excellence” in public health.

        APEXing is similar to MAPPing, except less exciting to the wonks at NACCHO, the National Association of County and City Health Officials.

        NACCHO chose Northern Kentucky as one of nine places in the country to test MAPPing. At a recent meeting, the Northern Kentucky folks issued a report on their progress.

        I tried to understand the darn thing. It made me long for a MAPP and a bag of NACCHOS.

Organizations abound

        Here's what I figured out before my head exploded:

        Northern Kentucky's health department has some important duties, such as inspecting restaurants and immunizing schoolchildren. But many other organizations also play a role in community health.

        There's the Healthy People Vision Council, which worries about depression and bad teeth. There's the Health Improvement Collaborative of Greater Cincinnati, which lists obesity among its concerns. And lest we run short of committees, Northern Kentucky just got a new one to worry about substance abuse.

        Through APEX and MAPP, the health district has been trying to bring all these pieces together.

        From 1993 to 1999, dozens of people from different organizations worked on APEX. They ranked the region's health problems and discussed which agencies could do what to solve them.

        They agreed on hundreds of objectives — screening pregnant women for health risks, getting people to use less gasoline, matching doctors with clients, training teachers to spot abuse.

"Visioning' results

        Then along came MAPP, touted as an even better way to decide what the community needs.

        Dozens of participants — some new, some the same — began “visioning” the answer to a broader question: “What is a healthy community?”

        The group's conclusion: “one that is safe, knowledgeable and engaged, nurturing, diverse, tolerant and has access to health care.”

        Great. Now we have health officials worrying about tolerance and diversity, in addition to breast cancer, gasoline usage, domestic violence and smoking.

        Coordination among agencies is terrific. Community involvement is great. But there is such a thing as seeing too much of the picture. What happened to the APEX objectives? How are those coming along?

        Beware of made-up words. They can be a sign that process has become more important than action.

       Karen Samples is the Enquirer's Kentucky columnist. She can be reached at (859) 578-5584 or at ksamples@enquirer.com.

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