Grant: #74320

Grantee: Greater Philadelphia Business Coalition on Health

Principal Investigator: Neil Goldfarb

Grant Period: 02/01/2017 – 07/31/2018

Budget: $245,971

This project is funded as part of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s solicitation, “Engaging Businesses for Health,” which seeks to build the evidence base for private-sector investment to help build a Culture of Health. The goal of the study is to demonstrate to businesses that further engagement and investment in community health could have a positive impact on employee health and corporate efforts to control health benefit costs. The study will establish quantitative evidence for employers that employees who live in less healthy communities use more services, and cost more, and that businesses therefore should consider investing in community health improvement. The study will utilize medical claims for over 56,000 individuals covered by self-funded employers in the five-county Greater Philadelphia region. The analysis will examine the relationship between the health of individuals’ communities, as assessed using data from County Health Rankings and the Community Health Database, and outcomes including hospital and emergency department use and total paid claims. Deliverables will include a project work plan and a final narrative and financial report. The grantee will also produce paper(s) suitable for publication and present findings at national meetings and to other stakeholder audiences as appropriate, including the business sector and trade associations, as part of the deliverables for this grant.

Publications

Study Snapshot: Employees from Less-Healthy Communities Use Emergency Department Services More
AcademyHealth | September 2019

Do Employees From Less-Healthy Communities Use More Care and Cost More? Seeking to Establish a Business Case for Investment in Community Health
Preventing Chronic Disease | July 2019