Charities Collaborate to Create Awards Program Addressing Solutions to Health Issues

We hear much about American health and health care being in crisis. Health care in the U.S. is increasingly expensive for everyone—consumers and government alike—but it doesn’t make us healthy. Despite that, there are “bright spots” of change where communities are coming together in new ways to solve their most pressing health problems.

These collaborations begin with the premise that the subject of health and wellness isn’t just about health care. Although health care can often heal us, it can’t overcome poverty, substandard housing, lack of transportation or an unhealthy environment. What happens outside the walls of hospitals—that is, in places where we live, work and play—matters more than what happens inside the colossus that is our health care system. Our communities still struggle with chronic, seemingly intractable conditions driven by where people live.

There is a way forward, though. In 2015, with support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Kresge Foundation, the de Beaumont Foundation, the Colorado Health Foundation and Advisory Board, we launched the BUILD Health Challenge.