Why Business Cares about Healthy Places: Examples from the Field

Where we are born, raised, live, and work matters to our health. The more we understand the connection between our health and our community, the more we can improve it. GlaxoSmith Kline (GSK) is a global healthcare company with 100,000 employees around the world who are guided by the mission of helping people do more, feel better, and live longer. To achieve our mission, we must go beyond discovering, developing, and delivering new medicines, vaccines, and healthcare products. GSK must address health challenges where they often start – in our communities.

Over the last two years, GSK has dramatically redesigned our philanthropy in the US. Aligning with the County Health Rankings & Roadmap’s logic model of What Works for Health, GSK is now working outside the doctor’s office to improve health outcomes by addressing a variety of place-based factors, such as safety, access to healthy foods and family and social support. Since the redesign, GSK has invested nearly $10 million in charitable programming that leverages a collective impact approach to build healthier communities in four diverse communities--Philadelphia, St. Louis, Denver, and Durham.

In addition to describing how and why businesses are collaborating with many partners to improve health outcomes in low-income neighborhoods, this session will explore promising cross-sector neighborhood revitalization strategies. In a candid conversation, real-time examples of what is working and what could be done better will be shared as the panel and participants explore how the public health field can better engage business in building healthier communities.