Making the Business Case for Prevention

Why should businesses care about community health? Because it can help them improve their bottom line, augment the health of the community from which they hire, create a positive relationship with community members, and expand their customer base.

In 2012, in a series called Making the Business Case for Prevention, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Division of Community Health (DCH) captured on video real-life examples of businesses that were reaping these rewards. The result is an inaugural set of three, documentary-style video vignettes that demonstrate how making healthy living easier is good business as well as good for the community.

By profiling the successes of a corner store grocer, the owner of a regional grocery store chain, and a real estate developer and property manager of multiunit housing developments, the videos seek to help bridge the health equity gap by spurring multisectoral support for the creation of healthier options (such as grocers who stock fresh produce and other healthy options and/or smoke-free multiunit housing), especially for vulnerable populations.

The videos provide public health practitioners and others with resources to demonstrate to businesspeople and broader audiences that healthy changes can both be profitable and impact community success. This proof is critical to developing and sustaining community health efforts. Additional business-case videos focusing on African American and Hispanic communities, including a Spanish-language video, are in development.

Distribution of the inaugural set of three videos has begun through Web sites, social media channels, and partner outreach. To evaluate these efforts, DCH will use process measures, including Web metrics, social media activity, and views from online video sharing sites. We anticipate sharing results by August 2014. Findings from testing the videos with the business audience and DCH awardees also will be presented.