Blog/Magazine Article

Brian Castrucci, CEO of the de Beaumont Foundation, and John Auerbach, President and CEO of Trust for America’s Health, discuss how “hospitals and health care systems have started to address [the] social determinants of health through initiatives that buy food, offer temporary housing, or cover transportation costs for high-risk patients. If this is what addressing the social determinants of health has come to mean, not only has the definition changed, but it has changed in ways that may impede efforts to address those conditions that impact the overall health of our country.”

The Nation’s Health, a publication of the American Public Health Association, spoke with Surgeon General Jerome Adams, MD, MPH, to learn about what he plans to accomplish in his role. “The theme of [his] tenure will be better health through better partnerships.”

“Research documenting the harmful effects on children when families must keep moving to find a safe, affordable home.”

“A safe, secure home is where health begins. To build more equitable, healthier communities, we need to boost people’s ability to afford a good place to live. This year’s County Health Rankings show us we still have work to do to reach that goal.”

Howard K. Koh, Former Assistant Secretary for Health, and coauthors discuss how “businesses, together with health and community partners, can promote a culture of health through 4 distinct but interrelated pillars.” These pillars are: consumer health, employee health, community health, and environmental health. Please note that this article is only available with purchase from the publisher.

In this blog, Nat Kendall-Taylor, CEO of the FrameWorks Institute, and Sean Gibbons, CEO of The Communications Network, explore “how [the way in which] we frame social issues profoundly influences our understanding of them, and how we think and talk about solutions.” They believe that “to effect broad and transformational change…social change leaders of all stripes must develop a deep understanding of how frames work. Framing is what we choose to say and how we choose to say it. But it’s also what we leave unsaid. It’s the values we use to build support for our cause.”

David Fleming, Hilary Karasz, and Kirsten Wysen of the Seattle & King County Health Department discuss the importance and challenges of evaluating community development projects for health outcomes and impacts. They claim that “in theory, evaluations quantifying the health improvements resulting from well-designed community development projects should be plentiful and broadly disseminated. Unfortunately, practice has not caught up with theory, and our evaluation cupboards are mostly bare.”

In this blog post, Nina Burke and Ruth Wageman at ReThink Health discuss distributed leadership and how it “[plays]out in the context of transforming regional health ecosystems. They explain why distributed leadership matters, specifically comparing it to common governance structures.

David Ehrlichman, David Sawyer, and Matthew Spence, partners of Converge, “a team of strategists and designers committed to social and environmental impact through collaboration and networks”, discuss what it actually takes to make collaborations and networks achieve their ambitious goals.

“This special supplement, sponsored by the Presidio Institute, takes a close look at cross sector leaders: how they are different from other types of leaders, the role that they play in advancing social change, and why they are so important today.”