Kaiser Permanente's Healthy Eating Active Living – Community Health Initiative (HEAL-CHI): A managed care organization's place-based approach to creating healthy communities through environmental and policy change in schools, neighborhoods, worksites and health care settings

Kaiser Permanente (KP) is the nation's oldest not for profit, integrated, prepaid health care delivery organization with 8.9 million members nationally. KP's Healthy Eating Active Living Community Health Initiative (HEAL-CHI) is part of a larger organization-wide strategy to improve the health of our members and the communities that we serve. It involves a long-term, focused partnership between KP and local communities with a high prevalence of obesity and health disparities. This partnership includes 5-year grant funding, technical assistance, evaluation assistance and participation by KP health professionals in local advocacy efforts. HEAL-CHI seeks to transform the environment and social norms of these communities through policy, environmental and organizational practice change across four sectors: schools, health care settings, neighborhoods and worksites. Evaluation of short, intermediate and long term outcomes is planned with a focus on building the field of evidence on effective public health strategies to address obesity and health disparities.

As one of the first Kaiser Permanente regions to implement HEAL-CHI, KP Northern California provides an example of how the initiative is unfolding and what lessons have been learned to date. KP Northern California is partnering with community collaboratives in Modesto, Santa Rosa and Richmond. These collaboratives have spent the last year assessing their communities, engaging stakeholders, planning their evaluations and identifying sustainable policy and environmental change objectives. This upcoming year will provide the first year of strategy implementation in each of the four sectors as well as baseline data results.