Health Equity and Social Justice: A Health Improvement Tool
Disparate health outcomes are a reality of the American health system and are a result of not only of inadequacies in health care, but also the failure to address the social determinants of health.
Kids and Drinking Water: A Glass Half Full or Half Empty?
Increasing kids’ consumption of drinking water supports their health and learning. Yet most children do not drink enough. There are many challenges to achieving the goal of all children drinking the daily recommended amount of water. This Views from the Field article discusses the policy framework and ways funders can help ensure access to safe drinking water for all children in the United States.
Expanding Impact Through Evaluation
Foundations support evaluations for a variety of reasons: to measure impact and monitor program performance; to strengthen program performance by providing feedback to grantees and foundation staff; and to promote broader learning by grantees, the foundation, and the nonprofit community at large.
Behavioral Health for All
Behavioral health conditions, which include both mental health and substance-use disorders, are among the biggest health problems our country faces. Roughly 50 percent of the population will be affected by these conditions at some point in their lives.
Reforming School Discipline Policies to Improve Children’s Success
n recent years, Atlantic deliberately honed its investments and focused its grantmaking on a small number of big bets with potential for significant impact. One of these priorities was the over-use of “zero tolerance” suspensions, arrests, and expulsions, and their role in pushing children of color into the justice system.
Building Our Way to Better Health
Kaiser Permanente of Georgia’s Community Benefit program has invested a total of $5 million since 2010 in Atlanta’s largest, most dynamic urban redevelopment project – the Atlanta BeltLine.
Building the Evidence: Investing in Research Supporting the Need for Healthy and Active Schools
Those leading our education system today face an enormous amount of pressure, from funding issues to curriculum changes, from absenteeism to state assessment scores. With so much to consider and so much to fit into each school day, leaders are often forced to make decisions that de-prioritize an important aspect of a child’s development: physical activity. Following discussions with numerous stakeholders, the Kansas Health Foundation found that a critical missing piece in making the case for the importance of physical activity at school was timely, state-specific data linking student fitness and academics.
Demonstrating Behavioral Health Impact Using Intensive Community-Based Services
Individuals experiencing an acute episode of mental illness often face challenges navigating a fragmented health care delivery system and overcoming barriers to access appropriate medical and mental health services.
What We Learned from the First Open Enrollment Period, and What to Expect from the Second
As work gets rolling for the second open enrollment period, it is an opportune time to reflect on lessons learned from the first open enrollment period, especially since the second one is shorter and there are fewer navigator resources available from the federal government.
Starting Early: Obesity Prevention in Early Childhood
In late 2009 The Boston Foundation shifted its health grantmaking focus from access to prevention in order to address the rising tide of preventable chronic illness and the escalating health care costs stemming from the obesity epidemic.