Creating a Healthier Future for Our Kids, Families, and Communities

Download the essay written for GIH’s 2011 annual meeting Creating a Healthier Future for Our Kids, Families, and Communities, which challenges grantmakers to envision a healthier future for children, families, and communities by working on many fronts. Foundation and health leaders were also invited to share their thoughts around the annual meeting theme.

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Building Capacity for Health Advocacy at the State and Local Level

This paper was prepared in conjunction with a strategy session convened by GIH and sponsored by the Missouri Foundation for Health and The California Endowment last fall. It examines philanthropy’s role in advocacy, the various sectors that constitute the field of health advocacy, capacities required to effectively engage in advocacy efforts, ways health funders have facilitated advocacy capacity development, and key issues for future action.

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Making the Connection: Pregnancy and Oral Health

Recent research indicates that efforts to support oral health can begin even before birth; just as a pregnant woman’s overall health can affect the health of her pregnancy and baby, her oral health can play a role in the occurrence of early childhood caries in her children.

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Improving Women’s Health from Communities to Care Settings

GIH convened the 2010 Fall Forum Improving Women’s Health from Communities to Care Settings to take an in-depth look at the challenges facing women, to show how they shape their health and that of their families. This report begins with a review of health statistics and the broader context of women’s health and then summarizes highlights from the November meeting.

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Back to Basics: Promoting Healthy School Food

With support from the Colorado Health Foundation, GIH convened the strategy session and site visit Back to Basics: Promoting Healthy School Food. This brief paper highlights some key issues that set the stage for the meeting and outlines main aspects of the discussion.

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Home Visiting: Giving Parents and Children an Early Boost

Thousands of children are born each year to parents who struggle to adequately care for them or who lack traditional support networks. As a result, many of these children are at risk for abuse, neglect, or other negative outcomes.

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Comparative Effectiveness Research: Informing Decisions and Improving Quality

Comparative effectiveness research (CER) is the study of methods to “prevent, diagnose, treat, and monitor a clinical condition or to improve the delivery of care” (IOM 2009). Its purpose is to assist consumers, clinicians, purchasers, and policymakers in making informed decisions that will improve health care at both the individual and population levels (IOM 2009).

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Improving Diversity in the Health Professions

Why do many disadvantaged groups in the United States, including people of color and low-income populations, still lack reliable access to highquality, affordable health care? Why are these groups also among the most affected by persistent and ever-widening disparities in health and health care?

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Improving Quality: Long-Term Vision and Incremental Change

Quality is one of the most pressing issues facing the health care system today, and foundations are using a variety of approaches to support quality improvement efforts at the local, state, and national levels, turning a cacophony of consumer voices into coherent, actionable work.

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Back to the Beginning: Obesity Prevention in Early Childhood

Recent efforts in the field of child obesity prevention have placed emphasis on the school-age population, and with good reason. Schools present a unique opportunity to reach large groups of children on a regular basis with healthy foods and physical activity. However, about 10 percent of children come to kindergarten already obese, indicating that more attention needs to focus on the period of life before school.

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