Get the latest delivered to your inbox
Privacy Policy

Now Reading

BALLE Connects Social Determinants of Health and Local Economy Strategies in New Field Guide for Healthcare Providers

BALLE Connects Social Determinants of Health and Local Economy Strategies in New Field Guide for Healthcare Providers

Published 04-18-16

Submitted by BALLE

The Business Alliance for Local Living Economies (BALLE) today released a new field guide, The Future of Health is Local, which gives health care providers actionable tools and examples on how to align the non-clinical assets of their organizations – such as procurement, employment, and investment – with local economic development strategies that can improve human health and revitalize local communities. The guide was produced in partnership with Kaiser Permanente.

The Future of Health is Local draws from a framework of successful economic strategies developed over 15 years of BALLE’s work with more than 100,000 businesses, investors, and leaders actively engaged in improving local economies across the U.S. and Canada. This framework is aligned with one developed by the Presencing Institute at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) that shows a nearly identical path for transforming our economy. When looking more closely at these strategies next to the World Health Organization’s social determinants of health approach, it is clear that this framework addresses similar problems and shares many solutions. In other words: The tools that are working to build strong local economies are the same as those working to improve health in people and communities.

“There is a collective shift happening in the health care community as hospitals and other institutions recognize that the solutions of localism are actually what make people healthy too,” said Michelle Long, Executive Director of BALLE. “Through our new field guide we show the leaders of our nation’s health care system how they can be smarter with their business investments, improve health in their communities, and help build strong local economies at the same time. By connecting these dots, real transformation is possible.” 

Studies over the last few decades have shown that 80 percent of human health is determined by social factors such as income, housing quality, and education, rather than just by the availability of quality medical care. With health care costs and illness treatment representing $3 trillion in expenditures in the U.S. – around 18 percent of the country’s GDP – hospitals and health care institutions can become a powerful part of rebuilding and revitalizing communities. Shifting even a small percentage of their $780 billion in annual spending and $500 billion in collective investments would have a transformative impact on local economies. 

The BALLE field guide shares stories and strategies from three health institutions leading the way in this work, including Kaiser Permanente, Henry Ford Health System in Detroit, and the Nuka System of Care serving Native Alaskans. The impact of these organizations on their communities is well documented: Kaiser Permanente, for example, has redirected its buying power to support sustainable local agriculture and renewable energy projects, and has purchased more than $1.5 billion from minority- and women-owned businesses.

As hospitals and other health care providers begin to understand their capacity to use more organizational assets to enhance human health and invest in their local communities, BALLE’s field guide provides the tools and information needed to both start this work and succeed. The Future of Health is Local can be accessed online at https://bealocalist.org/field-guide-future-health-local

About BALLE:

Founded in 2001, BALLE is a nonprofit organization focused on cultivating the emergence of a new economy by connecting leaders, spreading solutions that work, and driving investment toward local economies. BALLE believes local, independently owned businesses are the key to solving our communities’ toughest challenges and to creating real economic prosperity. Through a growing network of 100,000+ community entrepreneurs and funders, as well as the only Fellowship dedicated to cultivating the emergence of a new economy, BALLE is amplifying and accelerating enormous energy toward building resilient, local economies.

Learn more at http://www.bealocalist.org/. Follow BALLE on Twitter and Facebook.

 

 

 

 

 

 

BALLE

BALLE

Founded in 2001, BALLE believes local, independently owned businesses are the key to solving our communities’ toughest challenges and to creating real economic prosperity. Through a growing network of 50,000+ community entrepreneurs and funders, as well as the only Fellowship dedicated to cultivating the emergence of a new economy, BALLE is amplifying and accelerating the enormous energy toward resilient, local economies.

More from BALLE

Join today and get the latest delivered to your inbox