“If you want to lower my blood pressure, pay my rent.”

LISC:  HEZ Work a Model for Upending Health Inequality

Depending on whether you are born in a prosperous or a poor American neighborhood, your life expectancy can vary by as much as 25 years.  In a blog post for Build Healthy Places, Julia Ryan, LISC’s director of health and safety programs explains how Rhode Island’s Health Equity Zones (HEZ) are working to close the longevity gap.  As lead agency for two of those zones, LISC is helping to tackle the deep-rooted problems underlying that gap with a multi-strategy action plan.

Asset Funders Network:  Health and Wealth Connections

As GCRI panelists discussed at the January roundtable on Social Determinants of Health, pursuing positive health outcomes requires understanding the intersection of health and a variety of social and economic challenges.  Asset Funders Network recently released Health and Wealth Connections, a resource for funders concerned about the connection between health and financial security.

Far beyond health care access and affordability, wealth and numerous social factors related to where people live, work, and play impacts a person’s health. Data indicates assets, income, and health are inexorably linked. Good health is associated with higher wealth and income, better employment and education.

Authors Jason Q. Purnell, PhD, MPH & Anjum Hajat, PhD, MPH, explored with participants how health and wealth are connected and discussed how health impacts are more significant for low-income, vulnerable populations particularly people of color. The authors shared compelling evidence for investment in strategies and policies that consider both the physical well-being and economic stability of individuals, families, and communities.   View Brief and the webinar 

Children’s Healthwatch:  “Intersection of Health and Housing” and Caring for the Children of Immigrants

Children’s HealthWatch, has made available the recording of its webinar, The Intersection of Health and Housing, as well as related resources.  Webinar and resources here.

According to Children’s Healthwatch, pediatricians across the country are also seeing the harmful effects of anxiety about immigration-related Executive Orders and rhetoric on the health of their young patients.  In a recent blog post Children’s HealthWatch Principal Investigator, Dr. Diana Cutts, discusses the impact that policies have on her patients and expresses fear for the future of those children both directly and indirectly affected by harmful policies.

Grantmakers in the Arts:  Medicine and the Arts

Grantmakers in the Arts released a literature review on the growing field of arts in medicine. The review outlines the various ways in which artists and healthcare institutions work together to support patient and community heath, the infrastructure that exists to support this work, and how funders can support further development of the field.

Collaborative Funding for Children’s Health: San Joaquin Valley Health Fund

In order to address pressing issues facing children living in poverty, regional funders in the San Joaquin Valley of California embraced a collective impact model to address children’s health issues.  Using a learning community model, nonprofit partners receive modest grants to strengthen their capacity to engage in collective advocacy while building relationships, receiving technical assistance, and sharing best practices. As a result, the fifty-eight nonprofits currently working with the Fund have agreed to support a regional policy platform that employs a social-determinants-of-health approach focused on access to health coverage, early childhood investment, affordable housing, environmental health, and employment. Report

Funding Crisis for Public Health and Safety:  State by State Public Health Funding and Key Health Facts 2017

Reminder:  Don’t forget that Grantmakers in Health will be having their annual, national conference in Boston June 21-23.  Be sure to connect with colleagues from across the country without paying for airfare!  More information