What makes a community a healthy place to live, learn, work, and play?

More and more community leaders—from public health officials to mayors to United Way leaders to citizen volunteers—are acknowledging that there are many factors beyond health care that contribute to the health of a community. As they do so, they face an uncertain landscape. In order to address issues that range from creating healthy and safe environments to building strong educational and economic systems to assuring access to high quality health care to supporting people in healthy decisions, they know they face complex challenges that will require teams from across sectors to create innovative solutions. But what are the secret ingredients to success?

Part of that answer can be found in the winning communities selected by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Roadmap to Health Prize. The prize seeks out communities that excel in seven areas—a commitment to leadership; partnership; a focus on multiple factors that influence health; health equity; policy, systems, and environmental change; creative use of resources; and evaluation. This session will explore these areas, how they contribute to health improvement, and important themes discovered across the Prize-winning communities. Examples and stories from the communities will be shared. Participants will be encouraged to think about how these themes could apply to their own community and identify strategies to begin or enhance community health improvement work when they return home.