Healthy Voices
Here's what you'll read about in this issue of HWHC Healthy Voices:

 

  • Blog post from Prevention Partners' Whitney Davis: Why workplace health IS community health
  • HWHC in the News: Three ways for employers to build healthy communities
  • Invest Health: Grant opportunity for mid-sized cities
  • Blog post: Improving the "joy factor" in Waconia, Minn.
  • Get-HWHC.org: We need your feedback! 
Is January our healthiest month? Many of us rebound from holiday excesses with personal resolutions for healthier habits. Businesses and organizations may have access to new budgets with ambitious priorities around workplace and population health. What if we worked together to sustain that focus and commitment throughout 2016 - and across entire communities?

 
We are better together:
Why workplace health IS community health 
In this HWHC blog post, Whitney Davis, director of research for Prevention Partners , tells the story of a Campbell's Soup factory location. Because of the poor health of employees and resulting high health care costs, their manufacturing costs were 5 cents more per can of soup. And because health was equally poor throughout the county, other businesses weren't interested in setting up shop there, either. The whole area was paying the economic price for poor health.
 
Davis sees business leaders all across North Carolina connecting the dots around community health - and taking action. Read her full blog post to learn more. 
HWHC in the News:
Three ways for employers to build healthy communities

Nico Pronk, vice president and chief science officer at HealthPartners, writes about employer
strategies for community health in a recent article for The Institute for Healthcare Consumerism. He suggests three ways employers can begin to get involved:
 

1.    Understand how to make the business case.

2.    Know what's already working.

3.    Engage key community connections. 


Pronk co-chairs the HERO Employer-Community Collaboration Study Committee, which serves as the governing body for the HWHC initiative. Read the full article to learn more.

'Invest Health' grants available for mid-sized cities

If you're in a city of 50,000 to 60,000 people, check out the latest grant opportunity from
Reinvestment Fund and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation : Invest Health. Through this pioneering initiative, 60 cities will receive up to $60,000 each, as well as support from a mentor to initiate or ramp up cross-sector health collaborations.
 
Act quickly: Letters of intent are due Jan. 29, 2016. Learn more about Invest Health and how to apply.


Community Profile of All's Well Waconia:
Improving the "joy factor"

"Working together through All's Well Waconia has improved the quality of life in our community.   It's improved what I like to call, the 'joy factor.'"
 
HWHC interviewed three of the people involved with All's Well Waconia, a community health collaboration focused on healthy eating and active living. Read this new  blog post  to learn about their successes since launching in 2013, and their advice for other communities who are getting started or ramping up their efforts.  


How can we improve Get-HWHC.org?

While we have received much positive feedback on the HWHC website design and resources, we are constantly looking for ways to improve it and for new resources to add. If you're willing to participate in a more detailed survey about the Get-HWHC.org website, please email us at [email protected] .

 
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