SUPPORTING CHANGE TOGETHER

In communities across the nation, the Y is a leading voice on health and well-being. Since 2007, the Y movement has driven innovation in prevention and control of chronic disease to save lives and reduce healthcare spending. With support from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Y delivers tangible results in evidence-based chronic disease prevention and control. We aspire to increase life expectancy and addressing health inequity by increasing opportunities and policies that promote physical activity, improve access to healthy affordable foods, and advance environmental change that makes the healthier choice the easy choice.

As a community-facing organization, the Y’s mission has long focused on helping people to live their healthiest lives and reach their full potential in spirit, mind, and body, acknowledging that individual “health” is influenced by a range of interconnected environmental, social, and biological factors. We want to leverage our position—as an organization capable of advancing change at the individual, community, and national levels—to increase access to disease prevention and management resources in settings where people already live, work, learn, grow, and play.

At the Y, we know that community-based organizations focused on long-term relationship building and peer support are essential to successfully transition our healthcare system from a focus on volume to a focus on value. When 7 out of the 10 leading causes of death and 86% of healthcare spending in our country are related to chronic disease, we know that “the way we’ve always done things” has to change. We can extend the goals and values of clinical care into community settings—reaching more people with long-term, face-to-face support –when places like the Y and local healthcare systems work together.

Community Integrated Health is the effort to strengthen the linkages between traditional healthcare and community-based prevention strategies in order to help individuals prevent, delay, or live better with chronic conditions. Together we can:

• Increase life expectancy

• Increases access to care

• Lowers costs

• Prevents and addresses chronic disease

• Reduces the effects of some social determinants of health

• Close the gap in healthcare through greater health equity

We look forward to partnering with healthcare, community-based organizations, and funders to redefine health and transform the lives of our communities through a community integrated approach.