Cultivating Health Literacy at the State and National Levels

October 6, 2008

In 2004 the Institute of Medicine (IOM) released a landmark report on the state of health literacy in the United States. That report, Health Literacy: A Prescription to End Confusion, pulled together a growing body of information indicating that health literacy deficits are both common – present in nearly half of the U.S. population – and damaging to individual health and well-being.

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Improving the Health of Vulnerable Children with Medical-Legal Partnerships

July 14, 2008

ubstandard housing, polluted neighborhoods, and inadequate nutrition are just a few of the “nonmedical” problems that can compromise children’s health status and developmental trajectory. The most visible result of these threats can be a frustrating, expensive, and heartbreakingly preventable trip to the doctor’s office or local emergency room.

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Evaluating Programs: Can We Measure the Value of Health Grantmaking?

July 14, 2008

Partnering with policymakers and members of the business community is an effective way to increase the impact of health grantmaking by working cross-sectorally, and evaluating the effectiveness of these partnerships will help sustain interest in such collaborations.

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Transforming Health Care: Services for Older Adults Can Drive High Quality Chronic Care for All

June 2, 2008

The health of older adults in this country is an increasingly critical concern, with ramifications for every sector of society and philanthropy. It is time to plan seriously for the demographic change now happening.

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Faith in Action: Taking Caregiving to Scale

May 19, 2008

Over the course of the past fifteen years, the Faith in Action program has provided roughly 1,700 seed grants of up to $35,000 to help start local, interfaith volunteer caregiving programs. These programs are designed to provide free volunteer services to the large and growing number of elderly and disabled individuals who need help with simple, everyday tasks in order to be able to stay in their homes.

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Climate Change Is a Health Problem

December 10, 2007

The debate is over; climate change is real. Further, the human health impacts of climate change are now being felt. The World Health Organization estimated that since 1990, climatic changes already have claimed at least 150,000 deaths and an additional 5.5 million years of life lost to premature death or lived with disabilities (2003).

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Strong Ethics Policy Creates a Culture of Transparency

May 7, 2007

Almost daily, we are faced with making ethical decisions in our personal and professional lives. This is particularly true for those of us who work at foundations. Foundation board members and staff are often subject to intense pressure to provide funds for particular organizations.

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A Foundation Helps Launch a FQHC

March 13, 2007

For the past decade, free-market thinking has all but dominated the national discussion of health care. New kinds of coverage have resulted, including health savings accounts, along with new players in delivery, like the urgi-care clinics at Wal-Mart.

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Closing the Health Status Gap in the Nation’s Healthiest State: Paddling Upstream in the Land of 10,000 Lakes

April 21, 2006

Large numbers of Americans experience higher rates of illness and premature death for reasons that go beyond access to health care, lifestyle choices, and genetics. And yet, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the U.S. spends more than 90 percent of its health budget on downstream, individual medical care.

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Addressing Health Disparities by Engaging Institutions

November 17, 2005

Few issues cry out for remediation louder than the issue of racial and ethnic disparities in health. The magnitude of these disparities is so great that it has been called the “civil rights issue of the day” – an issue that public health has an obligation to address and remedy.

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