BUILD Health Challenge: Improving Health Through Innovative Collaborations

Posted by Build Health Challenge on January 16, 2017

The BUILD Health Challenge
Improving Health Through Innovative Collaborations

In the United States, more than 95 percent of health care spending is attributable to direct medical
services; however, medical care accounts for only a fraction of our nation’s health and well-being.
A far greater share, as much as 70 percent, can be attributed to the interplay and influence of
our social, physical, and economic environments. These upstream factors—often referred to as
the social determinants of health—include influences as diverse as early childhood development,
employment opportunities, food availability, air and water quality, transportation, educational
attainment, public safety, housing and a myriad of others. No one organization in a community can
address these alone.

Too often, efforts to improve community health are conducted in silos, seeking to address big
picture problems with narrowly focused interventions. In 2015, the BUILD Health Challenge
committed to supporting communities to change this, by investing in bold, locally-driven community
partnerships that leveraged integrated data to create institutional change, promote health equity,
and reduce downstream health care costs. For the communities that received funding and technical
assistance, it required a fundamental reorientation of how local leaders in health care, public
health, and community worked together to improve health and wellness. For most, it required
re-imagining their roles in community health, sharing their data and resources, and partnering in
new and creative ways. The challenges—logistical, financial, and strategic—were real, but offered
opportunities to catalyze systematic change that is set to last well into the future.

The BUILD Health Challenge awards are designed to support the advancement of community collaborations that are ready to put their bold, upstream, integrated, local, data-driven plans into action. Organizations jointly applying for a BUILD Health Challenge award should have a strong track record of working together and have developed their joint priorities and implementation plans with strong levels of community engagement and leadership. The BUILD Health Challenge awards are most appropriate for collaborations that have already developed a well-defined action plan with clear roles, strategies,
and goals, and where an infusion of philanthropic support could accelerate their work.

The application portal will open on Jan. 10, 2017. All applications must be submitted via the BUILD Health Challenge portal at http://buildhealthchallenge.org no later than 5 p.m. ET on Tuesday, February 21, 2017.

http://buildhealthchallenge.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/BUILD-Call-for-Applications.pdf