UNITED WAY’S GLOBAL STRATEGY:

ACCESS TO HEALTHUnitedWay.org

CHANGING A NATION:

HEALTHGood health is essential for success—for an individual, and for a community as a whole.

Healthy people are more likely to perform well in school and the workplace. Healthy communities produce a stronger workforce, thriving business and a strong economy that improves everyone’s quality of life.

United Way works to expand access to quality healthcare, promote healthy behavior and remove barriers to eating healthy and staying active.

By reducing childhood obesity and preventive illnesses, we enable people to live longer and live better—while cutting everyone’s healthcare costs in the process.

Consider just a few examples of how United Way is driving lasting change through improved health.

The goal of United Way’s access to health strategy is to ensure that:

• Individuals and families live healthier lives and enjoy quality affordable health care

Our strategy for improving health includes three key areas:

• Healthy Beginnings: Increasing access to prenatal care, improving parenting skills, and integrating two-generation strategies to benefit the whole family (e.g., “Born Learning Trails” that incorporate early literacy into fun and healthy physical activity).

• Physical Activity and Healthy Weight: Eliminating childhood hunger, and increasing access to healthy foods and fun physical activity (e.g., youth fitness and nutrition initiatives).

• Access to Health: Bringing health services to communities, promoting health insurance enrollment, and removing barriers to accessing public benefits and health resources (e.g., vision and dental screenings, connecting veterans to health services).

We tailor solutions to address the particular needs and aspirations of each community we serve. Consider a few examples. . .

Much of what determines a person’s health occurs outside the doctor’s office. Good health depends not just on access to quality medical care, but also the opportunity to live in an environment that is conducive to healthy living.

Healthy children perform better in school, and healthy adults perform better in the workplace. The result is a thriving community where people are active and have access to healthy foods, and a local economy that benefits from millions of dollars saved on healthcare costs.

HELPING KIDS STAY HEALTHY AND FITIn 2009, United Way of the National Capital Area started Fun, Fly & Fit as a pilot program in seven Washington, D.C. schools. The plan was simple yet innovative: get to kids where they are, at their schools, and get them moving.

A major focus of Fun, Fly & Fit was to increase the number of minutes that children and youth are physically active in and out of school. Children who participated in the 2014–2015 school year increased their play and activity time per week by an average of 160 minutes. In addition, 100% of participating children reported eating fruit two or more times a day and vegetables three or more times a day.

EXPANDING ACCESS TO HEALTH SERVICES

Project Health Access, an AmeriCorps program supported by United Way of Greater Atlanta and partners, has helped more than 60,000 people in Atlanta who don’t have health insurance, or who are underinsured, get treatment in a network of health clinics and homeless service organizations.

When people have nowhere else to turn, they use the ER as a primary care facility. As a result, medical providers are overwhelmed and many sick patients became even more ill as they wait for help. By connecting people to these other facilities, we take some of the burden off emergency rooms by providing treatment for chronic illnesses like high blood pressure and diabetes. Project Health Access also connects people to preventive care; as a result, more people avoid getting sick in the first place and the community saves on healthcare costs.

© 2016 United Way Worldwide | COMUN-0516