70H - Investing Upstream for Community Health Equity: What Leaders Need to Know

Tuesday, March 21

4:30–5:30 p.m.

Pioneering health leaders are increasingly focused on addressing the root causes of social determinants of health. Social factors such as housing, food access and economic opportunity drive health outcomes—and when health institutions invest upstream to address these community conditions, they can make a long-term, sustainable difference in those outcomes.

Supported by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Center for Community Investment has been working for the past six years to help health systems collaborate with community partners to identify community priorities and develop and execute pipelines of investment projects. Through CCI’s Accelerating Investments for Healthy Communities initiative, hospitals deployed millions of dollars to finance the production and preservation of affordable homes in their communities. Participating health systems built effective community coalitions that enabled them to change local policy and investment ecosystems, unlocking land, outside investment and other resources to help communities thrive.

Drawing on resources developed with AHA’s Center for Health Innovation, the Catholic Healthcare Association and NeighborWorks America, participants in this session will explore ways to build community investment strategies, points of entry into the process and roles that their health system might fill. They will learn to build strategies by selecting partners, setting appropriate targets, identifying investment opportunities and leveraging health system resources. Participants will return home ready to engage with colleagues and local partners in formulating and executing an ambitious, realistic strategy that serves the mission of their institution, strengthens its standing in the community and contributes to community well-being and health equity.

Learning Objectives

• Identify their institution’s motivations for investing, assets available, key team members within the health institution and key partners in the community.
• Create an investment plan that addresses the root causes of social determinants of health in their community and execute the first steps toward enacting it.