After Italy, it has been a whirlwind. We signed a few contracts and we
are quite busy. Work has taken us to Palm Springs and La Quinta, CA for a week
and now I am in Ohio for CDC facilitating a School Health Guidelines training.
In CA, we are working on the Clinton Foundation’s Health Matters Initiative as
the content lead for their anchor event, the Health Matters Conference in La
Quinta CA, January 15. Many of you know Ginny Ehrlich who is the CEO of the new
initiative and rocking it! Here is some information on the President’s new
initiative:
Clinton
Health Matters Initiative Overview
The vision of the Clinton Health Matters
Initiative is to improve the health and well-being of all people in the United
States by activating individuals, communities, and corporations to contribute
to the health of others through individual, systems, and investment actions.
The ultimate measures of success of the CHMI will be a reduction in the
prevalence of preventable disease, a reduction in healthcare costs associated
with preventable disease, and an increase in well-being indicators across the
United States. The success of the CHMI initiative will be measured by:
· An improvement of key preventable disease measures and health and
well-being indicators, as well as a reduction in healthcare costs associated
with preventable disease.
· A reduction in health disparities across populations.
· The number and economic impact of commitments made by corporations
and organizations to contribute to the health and well-being of others.
· The number of individuals taking meaningful action to contribute to
the health and well-being of others.
The
Clinton Health Matters Initiative will simultaneously activate individuals,
communities and corporations to contribute to the health of others through a
variety of evidence-based individual, systems, and investment actions through a
three-pronged strategy that includes:
• Activating individuals to make a difference in their communities,
• Convening community leaders to establish a region-wide investment in
the health and well-being of their citizens, and
• Engaging corporations to make investments or commitments towards the
health and well-being of their citizens.
To ensure
that CHMI addresses the key economic and quality of life challenges facing the
United States, each of the CHMI pillars will emphasize improving
health and well-being as a means of reducing preventable diseases, including,
but not limited to Type 2 diabetes, obesity, HIV/AIDS, and cancer. CHMI will
address health across the lifespan, recognizing that establishing healthy
living habits, even later in life, can reverse disease patterns and extend life
expectancy while reducing health care costs. In addition to addressing healthy
lifestyle, CHMI will focus on key settings in which children and adults spend
the majority of their time – schools, workplaces, doctor’s offices and
communities.
Activating
Individuals
Health
behavior change research suggests that social networks strongly influence
individuals’ health choices, such as whether they are physically active,
maintain a healthy weight, and maintain efforts to cease tobacco use. CHMI will
work to harness individuals’ natural enthusiasm for healthy living by
activating them to help others make healthy changes in their lives through
local, but scalable efforts.
Specifically,
CHMI will utilize best practice field organizing methods and will cultivate
relationships with social meet up organizations to enable health enthusiasts to
organize “meet ups” in their communities focused on engaging their social
networks in modeling healthy living and devising ways to improve access to
healthy living for others who are less fortunate in their communities. Local efforts
could take the form of coordinating free walking groups or exercise classes in
high poverty areas, extending farmers’ markets to local food deserts, or
sponsoring tobacco cessation support in high needs areas. In addition to
hosting or developing the online convening tool, CHMI will establish a system
for collecting stories and photography about local efforts catalyzed by CHMI. These
stories will be used as a means to inspire action in others and to share best
practices across engaged individuals. To encourage local groups to take on
meaningful projects, CHMI will create a downloadable activation kit that will
offer tips on hosting meet ups, community service project suggestions,
promotion and evaluation tools.
CHMI will
also work with highly visible yet credible champions, such as professional
athletes and celebrities, to serve as ambassadors for the initiative. CHMI
Ambassadors will be required to make their own commitments, as well as serve as
spokespeople to encourage individual action and celebrate local efforts through
appearances.
Improving
Health & Well-Being in the Community
CHMI will
play an important role in improving health status and reducing health
disparities in the communities across the United States by serving as a
convener, technical expert, and facilitator of regionally-based efforts to
improve health across the lifespan. CHMI will place a regional director in high
needs areas to work with regional governments, corporations, non-governmental
organizations, institutes of higher education, philanthropies, and individuals
to develop and implement a coordinated, systemic approach to address the health
disparities and improve health and well-being for all citizens. Mirroring the
overall measures of success for CHMI, success of this place-based initiative
will include: 1) the number of citizens taking meaningful action to contribute
to the health and well-being of others: 2) an improvement of key preventable
disease measures and health and well-being indicators, as well as a reduction
in healthcare costs associated with preventable disease in the targeted region;
and 3) the number of and economic impact of commitments made by corporations
and organizations to contribute to the health and well-being of others.
Engaging
Corporations & National Non-Governmental Organizations
CHMI will
engage business, industry and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in a
variety of ways. First, CHMI will engage corporations as sponsors and funders
of the initiative. In addition to providing financial support to the CHMI
initiative and/or the conference, these companies will be asked to make a
specific pledge on how they will contribute to the health of their employees,
schools or backyard communities. These pledges will take the shape of voluntary
agreements whereby these corporations make measurable pledges to improve the
health and well-being of their communities and report on agreed upon measures
over time. Viable pledges will be recognized and celebrated through appropriate
announcement strategies, social media, and new stories for the scale of the
pledge. The most impactful pledges will serve as content for the annual Health
Matters conference.
Keep an eye out in the beginning of the new year for our mailer. And,
if you do not get one, we need to add you to our mailing list, so contact us at
info@cairnguidance.com
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