Alabama has a problem, and ANNO is here to offer a new empowered vision and a helping hand.  Among all fifty states, Alabama's death rate ranks among the top four in overall mortality, cardiovascular disease, coronary heart disease, and stroke, as well as related chronic kidney disease, obesity, and diabetes. We are leaders in prevalence of hypertension and heart failure, and are plagued by substance use, anxiety and depression.  The Seventh Congressional District of west Alabama comprising much of the Black Belt for the color of its soil, and poorer sections of Tuscaloosa, Birmingham, and Montgomery ranks #1 among 435 districts in America for overall mortality.  The life expectancy among children born here between 2010 and 2015 is 73.2, a full ten years less than in wealthy suburban districts of America's great cities. 

For now, Alabama may be number 1 in the rate of death due to stroke, and the Seventh Congressional District may be number 1 in the rate of premature death, but ANNO (Alabama’s Not Number One) aims to change that ranking by working with community partners. Together with HEAL (Healthy Eating Active Living) United, as HEAL ANNO we work to empower individuals by providing actionable education and helping to facilitate community support for realistic, desired changes that have resulted in improved health outcomes for cardiovascular disease and other afflictions, both physical and spiritual. We support people with tools for our journeys to live longer AND healthier, to envision ourselves leaner and more physically fit and mobile. We aspire to become our best selves through better physical and spiritual health, through prayer, meditation, and positive relationships with ourselves, with our support communities, and with our Creator.