HASC and its Communities Lifting Communities initiative with the Public Health Alliance of Southern California today released a landmark report outlining how multi-sector partnerships with public health, hospitals and health systems, community development and other sectors can marshal resources to significantly improve the health of neighborhoods and communities.

“Our health care system has mostly focused on treating diseases rather than preventing people from getting sick in the first place,” said Bill Sadler, director of operations with the Public Health Alliance of Southern California. “However, there’s a growing shift to focus on improving underlying community conditions. Partnerships between hospitals and health systems, public health and community development sectors and community-based organizations represent a major opportunity to significantly improve the health of neighborhoods and the people who live in them.” 

Titled Innovative Community Investment Strategies: The Current State of Practice and a Vision for Greater Implementation in Southern California, the report is available for review and download here and below.

The innovative community investment strategy models outlined in the report have made a mark in multiple regions across the U.S. but have been slow to spread to Southern California. Emerging partnerships between public health departments and hospitals seek to change that. Through a review of more than 100 resources and case studies and 30 key informant interviews, the new report identifies best practices where partnerships and investment strategies address the root causes of health inequities and improve community health.

The report also includes recommendations for implementing similar partnerships in Southern California.

Key recommendations include:

• Establishing public health departments as core partners in all innovative community investment strategies.
• Hospital leadership championing innovative community investment strategies in Southern California.
• Establishing strategic partnerships among the community development sector in Southern California with the health care and public health sectors to invest in community health needs.
• Exploring alternatives outside of traditional funding mechanisms for greater alignment with resources in other sectors.
• Extending evaluation measures beyond just return on investment, and incorporating health and equity outcomes.
• Enacting state policies which could enable, facilitate and potentially fund local innovative financing strategies.

A webinar scheduled for 2-3 p.m. on Tuesday, June 30 will introduce attendees to the report and its findings. Titled Best Practices in Innovative Community Investment Strategies, the session features a panel of experts on best practices for collaboration on innovative community investment strategies. Speakers include HASC President/CEO George W. Greene, the Public Health Alliance of Southern California’s Bill Sadler, the Center for Community Investment’s Thomas Yee, and the Build Healthy Places Network’s Colleen Flynn.

Please visit the following link to reserve a spot for the event. Feel free to forward it to others who may be interested: 
www.eventbrite.com/e/best-practices-in-innovative-community-investment-strategies-tickets-108789365922

The Alliance and CLC are also scheduled to host a Capstone Roundtable seminar on April 28 as part of HASC’s 2021 Annual Meeting to promote the report and hear from multiple community investment innovators. More details on the event will be announced soon.

Support for the report was provided by The California Endowment and Blue Shield of California Foundation.

Download the press release here. Contact CLC Executive Director Susan Harrington to learn more.

Contact:                                                                    
Susan Harrington
(213) 538-0717
sharrington@hasc.org