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Supporting Children’s Healthy Development: Place DOES Matter
There is increasing recognition that children and their families are generally as safe, healthy, and productive as the communities in which they live, work, and play. As a result, there is more focus on improving community conditions and mitigating negative influences on people’s health and well-being.
Healthy and Safe Housing: A Foundation for Healthy Futures
The link between housing and health is well known and well established. Efforts to improve public health through housing improvements go back to the origins of the public health movement.
Racism: Combating the Root Causes of Health Disparities
Reducing health disparities in communities of color has been a public health priority in the United States for the past decade. To date, however, substantial improvements have not been achieved. Even more troubling is the evidence that disparities persist even when overall health trends improve.
Intervening Early to Address Children’s Health Disparities
In the United States, children of color and those in low-income families continue to lag behind white and affluent children on nearly every health indicator. In addition, many of these indicators and conditions, such as preterm birth, low birth weight, and asthma, can have long-term influences on children’s healthy development and functioning.
What’s in a Name? Untangling Health Disparities, the Social Determinants of Health, and Health Equity
Health disparities…social determinants of health… health equity. These phrases are used to talk about differences in health, but what do they mean?
Tackling the Tough Work of Community Change
While somewhat new to health foundations, place-based community change work is not new to philanthropy. Grantmakers who are considering such ventures have to judge how comfortable they are with the roles they might be called upon to play in a community change effort.
Oral Health Disparities: A Shift Toward Policy Work
Oral diseases and disorders occur frequently among all populations, but large disparities exist by region, age, socioeconomic status, and race and ethnicity. In response, many oral health grantmakers have become more focused on policy solutions to improve oral health.
Health Reform: Time for a Paradigm Shift
There is no question that health reform is crucial. To attain true health reform, however, we need to focus on keeping Americans healthier in the first place and not just treating them after they become sick. If we want to improve the health of the communities we serve, of an entire state, or of the entire nation, we need to act upon the fact that our health is shaped far more by the places we live, learn, work, and play than by what happens in clinics and hospitals (Robert Wood Johnson Foundation 2008).
HIV/AIDS and Women of Color: Changing the Conversation
For the past decade, HIV/AIDS-related conditions have been the leading cause of death for African-American women ages 25-34 in the United States (CDC 1999). Over the past two decades, our local foundation has seen this national epidemic take root in our local community in Washington, DC, where we now have 10 times the rate of HIV/AIDS per capita compared to the rest of the country.
Connect With Funder Peers on Health Equity
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We invite you to explore the resources available on our focus areas pages, browse content in more specific issue areas, and to connect with GIH staff to discuss how we can partner and support your work.