The Convergence Partnership steering committee includes representatives from The California Endowment, Kaiser Permanente, Kresge Foundation, Nemours, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention serve as critical technical advisors on the committee. PolicyLink, a national research and action institute devoted to advancing economic and social equity, serves as program director for the partnership. Prevention Institute, a national non-profit organization dedicated to improving community health and equity through effective primary prevention, provides policy research and analysis along with strategic support.
About the Steering Committee Members
The California Endowment (TCE)
The California Endowment (TCE) is a private, statewide health foundation whose mission is to expand access to affordable, quality health care for underserved individuals and communities, and to promote fundamental improvements in the health status of all Californians. Recognizing that real health improvements are tied to systemic reforms beyond the size and scope of its grant making, TCE launched the Center for Healthy Communities to bring together community and civic leaders, health providers, advocates, and policymakers in the quest for sustainable solutions to California’s critical health care issues. As the endowment embarks on its 10-year Building Healthy Communities initiative, the center serves as a forum for collaborative action to help make that vision a reality. TCE’s Community Health and Elimination of Health Disparities Program builds healthy communities by improving the social and physical environments that shape health behaviors and outcomes. For more information, visit The California Endowment.
Kaiser Permanente
The mission of Kaiser Permanente (KP) is to provide high-quality, affordable health care services to improve the health of their members and the communities they serve. Kaiser’s efforts go beyond the doctor's office to make a direct impact in schools, neighborhoods, workplaces, healthcare settings—everyplace where people live, work, and play. Specifically, the Community Health Initiatives (CHI) for Healthy Eating Active Living seeks to transform the health of communities by linking an evidence-based and prevention-oriented approach to medicine with community activism and proven public health interventions. Healthy Eating Active Living (HEAL) is KP’s approach to address the obesity epidemic with a multifaceted, long-term approach that crosses the full spectrum of health promotion. For more information, visit Kaiser Permanente Community Benefit Program.
Kresge Foundation
The Kresge Foundation, in partnership with their grantees, seeks to influence the quality of life for future generations by creating access and opportunity in underserved communities and by advancing environmental stability. The Kresge Foundation is a national foundation that supports six fields of interest: health, the environment, community development, arts and culture, education, and human services. Given the broad and complex health challenges plaguing residents of many communities in the United States today, Kresge has decided to expand its efforts significantly. In June 2008, they launched a major program to address the health inequities found in many low-income and minority communities. Their Health Program has adopted an integrated, cross-sector, multi-system approach to promote the physical health and well-being of low-income and vulnerable populations by improving the environmental and social conditions affecting them and their communities. The Program also works to increase both access and quality of their health-care services, and advance the field through new knowledge and promising practices. The Health Team funds evidence-based work and innovation developed at the local, state, or national levels in the following three areas: Healthy Environments, Caring Communities, and Emerging and Promising Practices in Health. For more information, visit Kresge's Health Program.
Nemours
Nemours is one of the nation’s leading children’s healthcare institutions dedicated to restoring and improving the health of children through care and programs not readily available, with high standards of quality and distinction regardless of the recipient’s financial status. Nemours Health and Prevention Services (NHPS), a nonprofit organization based in Newark, Delaware, works with families and community partners to help children grow up healthy. Their goal is to effect long-term changes in the policies and practices that promote child health and to leverage community strengths and resources to have the greatest impact on the most children. NHPS expands Nemours’ reach beyond clinical care to consider the health of the whole child within his or her family and community. For more information visit, Nemours Health and Prevention Services.
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF)
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation seeks to improve the health and health care of all Americans. The foundation’s program areas include childhood obesity, public health, and vulnerable populations, among others. The RWJF Public Health team is working with a broad range of groups to increase support among public policymakers and other key leaders for improving the structure and funding of public health at the federal level, as well as working with local public health leaders and community advocates to advance knowledge of how tools might improve community health outcomes. The Vulnerable Populations portfolio identifies new pathways for improved health by recognizing the integral relationship between our health and where and how we live, work, learn, and play. The RWJF Childhood Obesity Initiative has the goal of reversing the childhood obesity epidemic by 2015 by improving access to affordable healthy foods and increasing opportunities for physical activity in schools and communities across the nation. RWJF also launched the Commission to Build a Healthier America, a national, independent and nonpartisan health commission that focused on investigating how factors, such as education, environment, income, and housing shape and affect personal behavioral choices. For more information visit, The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
The W.K. Kellogg Foundation
The W.K. Kellogg Foundation supports children, families, and communities as they strengthen and create conditions that propel vulnerable children to achieve success as individuals and as contributors to the larger community and society. The Kellogg Foundation’s work is designed to take a holistic approach to addressing key social issues. The foundation focuses its resources and energies toward children and families, and conducts its work through the dual lenses of racial equity and civic engagement. In late 2009, the Kellogg Foundation launched Food and Community, a national program focused on creating healthy places where all children thrive. Investments are intended to improve school food systems, increase access to good food and physical activity environments, and to fuel the national healthy living movement. With the launching of Food and Community, the Kellogg Foundation continues to shape the national healthy eating and active living movements. Through Food and Community, the foundation will leverage investments, expand strategic alliances, and share knowledge learned in communities about what works—and what doesn’t—in a continued effort to scale up community models of change. Through the Food and Fitness collaboratives, the Kellogg Foundation has made investments in the food and physical activity environment in nine communities. For more information visit, W.K. Kellogg Foundation.
About the Technical Advisor
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
For over 60 years, the CDC has been dedicated to protecting health and promoting quality of life through the prevention and control of disease, injury, and disability. CDC is committed to forming new partnerships and seeking solutions to community-wide public health problems. The mission of CDC's National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion (NCCDPHP) is to lead efforts that promote health and well-being through prevention and control of chronic diseases. Their major program areas include: diabetes; healthy communities; healthy youth; nutrition, physical activity, and obesity; heart disease; and health disparities, among others. Specifically, the Division of Nutrition, Physical Activity, and Obesity aims to lead strategic public health efforts to prevent and control obesity, chronic disease, and other health conditions though regular physical activity and good nutrition. In 2010, CDC awarded grants to communities, states, and territories across the country to support public health efforts to improve nutrition, increase physical activity, reduce obesity, and decrease tobacco use—four critical actions to combat chronic disease and promote health. The projects are part of a comprehensive U.S. Department of Health and Human Services prevention and wellness initiative—Communities Putting Prevention to Work (CPPW)—created by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. CPPW funding focuses on supporting communities to make the policy, environmental, and systems changes necessary for obesity and tobacco prevention. For more information visit, CDC Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion.
About the Program Director
PolicyLink is a national research and action institute advancing economic and social equity by Lifting Up What Works®. Founded in 1999, PolicyLink connects the wisdom, voice, experience, and innovation of local leaders to the creation of sustainable communities of opportunity that allow everyone to participate and prosper. The work of PolicyLink–and the PolicyLink Center for Health and Place–is guided by the belief that those closest to the nation’s challenges are central to the search for solutions. Lifting Up What Works® focuses attention on how people are working successfully to use local, state, and federal policy to create conditions that benefit everyone, especially low-income communities and communities of color. With local, state, and national partners, PolicyLink spotlights promising practices, supports advocacy campaigns, and helps bridge the traditional divide between communities and policymaking. PolicyLink is dedicated to ensuring all people have access to quality jobs, good schools, better housing, reliable transportation, and opportunities for healthy eating and active living. The work of PolicyLink is grounded in the conviction that equity—just, fair, and green inclusion—must drive all policy decisions. For more information, visit PolicyLink.
About the Research & Strategic Advisor
Prevention Institute, founded in 1997, serves as a focal point for primary prevention practice—promoting policies, organizational practices, and collaborative efforts that improve health and quality of life. As a national non-profit organization, the Institute is committed to preventing illness and injury, to fostering health and social equity, and to building momentum for community prevention as an integral component of a quality health system. Prevention Institute synthesizes research and practice; develops prevention tools and frameworks; helps design and guide interdisciplinary partnerships; and conducts training and strategic consultation with government, foundations, and community-based organizations nationwide and internationally. For more information, visit Prevention Institute.
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