Humana Foundation Advances Equity Through Community-Engaged Research Practices

Grantmakers In Health’s Maya Schane spoke with Heather Hyden and Soojin Conover of the Humana Foundation about the Foundation’s recently published report, Strengthening Science and Community Impact Through Equitable Research Practices. The report examines innovative research methods adopted by the Foundation’s partners to promote health equity in public health research through community-engaged research practices.

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Collaborating for Impact: Providing Trust-Based Grantmaking and Technical Assistance to Support Local Resilience to Extreme Weather Events

In the last few years, there has been an increased number of extreme weather events, including wildfires, tornadoes, hurricanes, floods and heatwaves in the United States. In 2023, the United States experienced 28 disasters that cost at least $1 billion, the largest number of billion-dollar disasters in a single year on record (Smith 2024). While some areas of the country are more susceptible to these threats, there are no regions immune to disasters. According to a recent Gallup poll, 37 percent of adults in the United States report they have been personally impacted by at least one extreme weather event in the last two years, which is higher than the 2022/2023 survey result at 33 percent.

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Working Through Challenges to Sharing Power With Community: Highlights from a session at Grantmakers in Health’s Annual Conference

The people closest to the issue best know the solutions. For health funders, sharing power with community could mean giving residents a voice in shaping your grantmaking priorities or where grant dollars are spent. Many funders understand that solutions are more likely to be successful when the people who are most affected have a voice in shaping them. But when it comes to including that voice, the work often stalls before it starts.

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2024 GIH Annual Conference: Call for Proposals

We invite you to submit a session proposal for the 2024 Grantmakers In Health Annual Conference on Health Philanthropy: Bold Results Through Courageous Action. 

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Strengthening a National Field of Practice for Climate, Health, and Equity: Learning What it Takes

When The Kresge Foundation’s Climate Change, Health and Equity (CCHE) initiative launched in 2018, community power mobilization was integral because too often the people closest to viable climate resilience solutions were excluded from decisionmaking. Since then, the leadership of CCHE’s community-based, health practitioner, and health institution partners has underscored the significance of community power to transform climate policy and public health practice.

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Notes from the Journey: Going Beyond Words to Advancing Health Equity

In the weeks since the 2023 Grantmakers In Health conference in Minneapolis, where we gathered as a community of grantmakers seeking to advance health equity, I have been reminded often of the inspiring and encouraging conversations we had by an envelope of Post-It Notes sitting on my desk. These notes make me smile. They make me feel connected. And their messages motivate me to continue the journey from health to health equity for the long haul.

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Terrance Keenan Institute Alumni Reflect on How COVID-19 Changed Grantmaking

Foundations play a vital role in the nonprofit sector, funding everything from safety net services to social innovation. Like many businesses, philanthropic organizations altered their ways of doing business in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The health sector, including hospitals and other health care settings along with public health organizations, were deeply affected by the magnitude of illness and the polarization of the pandemic response. To understand exactly how the business of health grantmaking shifted during COVID-19, Jennifer Chubinski and Allen Smart conducted in-depth interviews with health foundation leaders from around the country to learn what changed in their grantmaking strategies and practices.

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The Kids Are Okay: Lessons Learned from a Youth-Led Participatory Grantmaking Program

The Natrona Collective Health Trust (NCHT) was created in October 2020 after the sale of our community’s standalone nonprofit hospital to a regional hospital system. As Wyoming’s first health conversion foundation, NCHT uses trust-based philanthropy and systems change advocacy to advance the mental well-being of our community’s young people. During an extensive strategic planning process, we found that at both our community and state levels, there is insufficient infrastructure to address mental and behavioral health needs, which perpetuates health disparities and high incidences of childhood trauma.

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Reports

The SCAN Foundation: September 2023

The SCAN Foundation published a report analyzing 2014-2020 Health and Retirement Study (HRS) data. The analysis found racial inequities in telehealth, access to care, and health status during the first year of the pandemic. In 2020, non-Hispanic Black and Hispanic adults over 50 experienced worse self-reported health status, used less telehealth, delayed care more, and were less likely to have their care preferences considered compared to their white counterparts.

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