Building Healthy Communities

Project Title

Health Across all Policies and Healthy Aging Initiative

Grant Amount

$24,955

Priority Area

Building Healthy Communities

Date Awarded

January 24, 2018

Region

Capital Region

Status

Closed

Website

https://www.healthresearch.org/

In January 2017, Governor Cuomo launched an initiative to implement Health Across all Policies (HAAP) in New York State.

HAAP is a collaborative approach that integrates health considerations into policymaking across all sectors to improve population health. This approach also furthers the goals of the New York State Department of Health’s (NYSDOH) Prevention Agenda, a blueprint to improve the health of all New Yorkers in five priority areas, reduce health disparities, and make New York a healthier state. Meeting those goals, which include reducing obesity and diabetes rates, improving environmental health, and promoting mental health, will require attention to factors outside of health care such as access to outdoor spaces and healthy food and improvements in education, housing and jobs. In January 2018, NYHealth awarded Health Research Incorporated (HRI) a grant to work with NYSDOH on implementing a collaborative effort with other State agencies to build health and healthy aging considerations into the design and implementation of non-health policies.

Under this grant, HRI and NYSDOH collaborated with non-health State agencies to embed HAAP and other healthy aging approaches into government processes, including program, policy, and purchasing. Both organizations expanded the involvement of nonhealth-focused State and local government agencies into countywide community health improvement efforts that included local community members. Last, they convened stakeholders to strengthen collaborations, as well as identified and implemented methods to spread health improvement strategies that target social determinants of health in local communities. HRI created a roadmap that incorporated information from State agency initiatives and procurement changes for other State agencies and local planning departments to use as a guide for replication. HRI convened both State and community stakeholders to share examples of best practices, as well as solicited input and ensured that feedback is incorporated into policies and program changes.