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How does public policy impact "place?" A 2010 analysis of life expectancy data by the Cuyahoga County PLACE MATTERS Team, a group of local leaders developing strategies on how where we live, work, and play impacts health, reveals a 24-year difference in life expectancy between individuals living in Lyndhurst versus individuals living in the Hough neighborhood of Cleveland.
With that as the backdrop, the Saint Luke's Foundation is pleased to announce that Angela Glover Blackwell, Founder and CEO of PolicyLink, will take the podium at 12 noon on Friday, February 17 at The City Club of Cleveland to discuss how issues of “place” relate to economic opportunities, social equity and community revitalization.
Ms. Blackwell's presentation is the third in the "Why Place Matters" series sponsored by the Saint Luke's Foundation in partnership with the Cuyahoga County PLACE MATTERS team.
For more information, click here for the program flier. (1/25/2012)
"Place" matters more than you think Decades of disjointed federal, state, and local policies have caused social and structural issues that impact urban community health. The Cuyahoga County PLACE MATTERS team is guided by its vision for a Cuyahoga County where people can thrive because thereis equitable access to resources and opportunities, whether, economic, social or environmental, that are necessary to attain the highest quality of life. The team informs, influences, and engages policy makers and community members to use an overarching health equity lens for the development of policies that create conditions for optimal health such as safe housing, adequate green space, clean air and water, access to healthy foods, access to quality health care, and quality education. It is intended that the long-term impact of these efforts will improve health outcomes and reduce inequities, allowing urban communities to thrive.
PLACE MATTERS is a nationwide initiative of the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, Health Policy Institute. The initiative is intended to improve the health of participating communities by addressing social conditions that lead to poor health. The national learning community consists of 16 PLACE MATTERS Teams responsible for designing and implementing health strategies for residents in 21 counties and three cities. The Health Policy Institute provides technical assistance to participating Teams in the form of facilitation, Design Lab meetings (including national-level experts and peer-to-peer learning opportunities), technical assistance grants, and access to data. For more information see the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies.
To advance the core principals of the Place Matters work, the Saint Luke's Foundation has partnered with The City Club of Cleveland, on the “Why Place Matters” speaker series. The series, sponsored by the Saint Luke’s Foundation in partnership with the Cuyahoga County PLACE MATTERS team, is hosted by the City Club of Cleveland to provide a forum for an ongoing conversation directed toward addressing chronic public health inequities across Cuyahoga County.
To date, two speakers have enlightened packed houses at the City Club:
October 24, 2011: Cleveland native Dr. Gail Christopher, vice president of program strategy at the W.K. Kellogg Foundation in Michigan. If you missed Dr. Christopher's presentation, click here for her comments on how building stronger communities helps build better health.
November 29, 2011: Ron Sims,former Deputy Secretary of the U.S.Department of Housing and Urban Development, who spoke on thetopic of how communities can advance health equity through land use planning. To view Mr. Sims' presentation, click here.
Place Matters Resources There is a wealth of information available on the subject of why and how place matters. Take a read of the reports noted below - each has a unique yet compelling take on the issue.
The True Wealth of Health The World Health Organization identifies the main determinants of health as being related to the social and economic environment, the physical environment and individual characteristics and behaviors. Although all of these are critical and integral to the general health of people all over the world, a few of them stand out as more heavily weighted and relevant to the challenges in Cleveland and Northeast Ohio. These are: income and social status, employment and working conditions, social/physical environments and culture. To read the report, click here.
The Re-Emergence of Concentrated PovertyAccording to this recent report published by the Brookings Institution, the number of individuals living in extremely poor neighborhoods grew faster in Northeast Ohio suburbs faster than elsewhere in the nation. to read the report, click here.
Key Social Demographic and Population DimensionsEarlier this year, the Center on Urban Poverty and Community Development in partnership with the Saint Luke's Foundation released a series of 12 data briefs on key social demographic and population dimensions of three neighborhoods on the east side of the City of Cleveland: Buckeye-Shaker, Mount Pleasant, and Woodland Hills. To read the report, click here.
Neighborhoods, Obesity, and DiabetesThe question of whether neighborhood environment contributes directly to the development of obesity and diabetes remains unresolved. The study reported on here uses data from a social experiment to assess the association of randomly assigned variation in neighborhood conditions with obesity and diabetes. To read the report, click here.
The "Why Place Matters" series would not be possible without the efforts of the following partners:
Limited resources can create opportunities: The Human Services Restructuring Project
Recognizing we live in challenging economic times, a group of local funders came together in 2009 and pooled resources to identify ways to ensure our community’s most vulnerable citizens continue to have access to the highest quality human services. Collaboration is one way to address this challenge, and these funders were well positioned to get the dialogue started.
The funders' goal? To encourage, foster and support significant strategic restructuring efforts when and if those efforts have the potential to increase effectiveness and produce substantial cost savings. The Human Services Restructuring Pilot Project, created when 18 funders joined together to engage human services organizations in a process of exploring strategic restructuring, was headed by Denise San Antonio Zeman from the Saint Luke's Foundation and Deborah Vesy from the Deaconess Community Foundation.
Aimed at organizations ranging in size from smaller agencies with budgets under $500,000 and under 10 full-time employees, to those with budgets in excess of $10 million and over 100 employees, the result was an announcement earlier this year of eight mergers or affiliations.
At the completion of the project, the funder collaborative commissioned a summary report of the project. Click here to access the report.
Additionally, The Foundation Center has been selected as the home for all of the guiding documents from the project. The following documents are a sampling of pilot project materials now available from the Foundation Center, shared so that others might learn from them.
To access more documents from the Human Services Pilot Project, click here. For more on the Foundation Center's other Nonprofit Collaboration Resources, click here. (8/3/2011)
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