Highmark Foundation

Healthy Communities

The Highmark Foundation's mission of creating healthier communities represents the convergence of public health, system change and thought leadership.

Improving Health in Our Communities

Healthy Communities is the latest strategic category in the Foundation's portfolio of funding priorities. We are working in collaboration with various stakeholders, policymakers and community-based organizations to create a unified vision of what defines a healthy community. To that end, the Foundation will strengthen capacity-building efforts in high-need communities within its footprint to address health inequities and related interventions.

This strategy has been developed by working with various community partners and organizations to determine a broad community engagement strategy that will impact these communities based on assets, health access and a number of other social determinants. As part of this strategy, the Foundation will:

  • Facilitate a collaborative agenda through community engagement for approaches that inform efforts to improve health outcomes;
  • Based on assessments, enhance the capacity and assets needed to support improvements in health outcomes of priority communities;
  • Establish a strategic process to planning, implementing, and evaluating community health improvement strategies; and
  • Use data and leverage collaboration to meet the needs of identified communities.

As more information becomes available about Healthy Communities, the Foundation will update the community on its efforts to address pervasive and unmet health needs.

Funding programs that:

  • Facilitate a collaborative agenda through community engagement
  • Enhance the capacity and assets needed to improve community health
  • Use data and replicable models
  • Leverage collaboration to meet the needs of communities

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