Building Healthy Communities - Working Together for Better Health

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Dec 09, 2017
by Salzburg Global Seminar
Building Healthy Communities - Working Together for Better Health

Participants discuss how other sectors can collaborate with hospitals in support of better health

Sir Harry Burns (right) argued organizations should make a greater effort to do things with people

Many hands make light work, as the saying goes. The more people who help with a project, the more comfortable the task becomes. Participants started the second day of Building Healthy Communities: The Role of Hospitals by considering how other sectors could more effectively and proactively collaborate with hospitals in support of better health.

They were assisted in their thinking by Sir Harry Burns, Rev. John Edgar, Rebecca Davis and Mark Rukavina. All four took part in a panel discussion.

Burns, a professor of global public health at the University of Strathclyde, said it was important to involve as many sectors as possible when finding solutions. There is never going to be one answer. In a society which is governed by rules of efficiency, organizations may act as if they exist to do things to people. Burns argued organizations should be doing things with people and asking what they need.

Rather than strictly focusing on their needs, Edgar said his organization, Community Development for All People (CD4AP), worked with people and communities based on their assets, hopes, and relationships. Edgar, CD4AP’s executive director, said after listening to people’s hopes and the changes they wanted to see, they saw notorious developments when it came to housing-based health.

Davis told participants how she had worked with hospitals to understand their recruitment and employment practices. She suggested leaders who wanted to develop a more diverse workforce must ensure there is better cultural understanding in hospital wards. To reach valid conclusions, it’s important to not only look at research but also combine it with local experience and the realities of the communities that are being served.

Participants heard the introduction of the Affordable Care Act, in the United States, in 2010, meant non-profit hospitals had to undertake community health needs assessments every three years. This provided an avenue to understanding the assets and issues communities had.

Rukavina, the business development manager with the Center for Consumer Engagement in Health Innovation, said hospitals had an opportunity to engage with vulnerable, low-income and under-favored communities and change the perception of the health system.

In response to this discussion, participants considered the existing structures in society that make it difficult for people to address issues and the need to break down walls.


The session, Building Healthy Communities: The Role of Hospitals is part of Salzburg Global Seminar multi-year series Health and Health Care Innovation in the 21st Century. This year’s session is held in partnership with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. To keep up to date with the conversations taking place during the session, follow #SGShealth on Twitter and Instagram.