Health
Health + Housing Summit
About the Summit
The health challenges that result from lacking safe, affordable housing can be considerable, chronic, and expensive. This is why we’ve seen care providers around the country begin to work to better health through housing. In order to explore best practices that could result in improved health outcomes in Philadelphia through cross-sector collaborations, PACDC worked with partners to plan our region’s first Health + Housing Summit – an all-day convening on December 13, 2018 hosted by Thomas Jefferson University Hospitals.
The Summit highlighted ways in which health organizations like hospitals, MCOs, and insurance companies in our region and across the country have engaged to address the housing needs of the communities they serve, and the practical partnerships they’ve formed with housing providers and local governments. It showcased replicable models that can inform decisions being made locally.
The goal of the Summit was to provide an opportunity for local health systems, nonprofits, and government leaders to learn from innovations occurring elsewhere so that they may develop collaborative models to be implemented here in Philadelphia. It was an unquestionable success! We attracted an at-capacity crowd from a wide variety of backgrounds, and both the plenary content and the panelists received extremely positive feedback. Moreover, it provided a space for the important networking and introductions that will hopefully pave the way for the meaningful action of tomorrow.
Below you can find videos of the powerful plenary and breakout presentations.
Concurrent Sessions
Concurrent Sessions: 1:45 – 3:15 P.M.
Concurrent Sessions: 1:45 – 3:15 P.M.
Addressing Chronic Homelessness
Health + Community Development
Areas of Focus
- Connecting Health and Housing: The quality and safety of housing is a key social determinant of health, so PACDC pursues productive partnerships between health and housing providers to increase the availability of healthy homes.
- Trainings & Knowledge Sharing: Cross-sector education is critical to raising awareness of the benefits of potential partnerships and how to realize them. We will work to create opportunities to break down silos of communication and encourage partnerships to address a range of community development and health needs.
- Community Health Needs Assessments (CHNAs): Non-profit hospitals are required by the Affordable Care Act to do CHNAs every three years, which are data-driven plans, guided by community input, on how hospitals will address community health. As trusted caretakers for Philadelphia’s neighborhoods, CDCs are an invaluable resource to provide feedback and engage community residents. PACDC works to ensure that health systems benefit from this network and its deep knowledge of their neighborhoods.
- Partnership Opportunities: Dialogue is important, but work on the ground is what really counts. PACDC pursues opportunities for partnerships between our members and health providers that can make real improvements to communities.
Social Determinants of Health
Health experts increasingly recognize that what happens in a hospital or doctor’s office only accounts for about 10% of health outcomes. Instead, patients are heavily affected by “social determinants of health”: the conditions in which people live, work, learn, and play. Ensuring healthy conditions not only leads to better health outcomes, but also saves money by preventing costly healthcare interventions downstream. That’s why CDCs and health systems share a common goal of improving the communities they serve. CDCs compliment the work of medical providers by offering affordable housing, leading community economic development efforts, turning vacant properties into community assets, maintaining green space, putting healthy foods in reach, or providing social services. CDCs address what individuals, families, and entire neighborhoods need to be healthy when they are outside of the doctor’s office.
This nexus between health and community development offers opportunities for partnerships between health care institutions – health systems, hospitals, insurance companies, managed care organizations, and primary care providers – and CDCs to improve communities and the health outcomes of residents. PACDC works to raise awareness of our members’ work through a health lens, highlighting opportunities for collaboration, and forging relationships between these sectors.