California Endowment Builds Healthy Communities
Published May 27, 2009
With nearly 7 million people lacking health coverage – including more than 700,000 children – California has the highest number of uninsured residents in the nation. To compound the problem, the state is peppered with pockets of poverty.
“Low-income communities don’t have the same access to health, social, economic and cultural supports as their more affluent counterparts,” says Robert Alaniz, public affairs director for The California Endowment, based in Los Angeles. “Families in these communities live sicker and die younger.”
The California Endowment is working to change that. The private foundation, established in 1996 after Blue Cross of California converted to a for-profit entity, provides funding to improve the health of Californians, particularly those in underserved communities.
“Where we live, work and play has a direct impact on our health,” Alaniz says. “The evidence is empirical, and the statistics are undeniable.” Consider that residents along Los Angeles’s South Figuerro Corridor are nearly twice as likely to die prematurely from heart disease as residents of the city’s well-heeled Westside.
To address the inequities, The California Endowment is embarking on a 10-year initiative, Building Healthy Communities, with implementation to begin in 2010. The health foundation selected 14 communities, each of which must develop a plan to achieve 10 specific outcomes that will help reach statewide goals for better health.
One desired outcome, for instance, would be that residents live in communities with equitable housing and health-promoting land use, transportation and community development.
“We selected 14 communities so we can demonstrate that you can turn communities around and build them into environments that support community health,” Alaniz says.
The selection took into account each community’s need, readiness and willingness to commit to a 10-year effort, infrastructure and leadership.
The choice of 14 communities (from an initial list of 20) was based on the amount of resources the health foundation can commit to the project over the next 10 years.
Children Define Community Health
The California Endowment, which has regional offices in Fresno, Oakland, Sacramento and San Diego, also will participate in statewide policy/advocacy efforts to create sustainable health improvements for all Californians.
Policy change can occur at the institutional, local or statewide level. An institutional policy change might mean that hospitals no longer bill low-income, uninsured patients at an inflated rate for emergency services. A statewide policy change could involve laws that provide universal health coverage for uninsured children. A system change involves moving from the current health-care model of primarily responding to the ill to focusing on preventing illness.
In addition to the Building Healthy Communities initiative, The California Endowment offers the Center for Healthy Communities, which provides space for nonprofit organizations and public institutions to tackle California’s most pressing health issues. It also offers curricula that address communication, advocacy and evaluation.
No matter the initiative, the health foundation’s efforts put children as a priority. “The health of a community’s children is a prime indicator for that community’s health,” Alaniz says. “If the children are doing well, it is likely that the community has access to the support it needs to be healthy.”
Story by Pam George
Photo by Jeff Adkins
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