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Healthy People in a Healthy Economy: Making Massachusetts the
National Leader in Health and WellnessA Blueprint for Action in Massachusetts (June 2010)

Healthy People in a Healthy Economy: A Blueprint for Action in Massachusetts (June 2009)

With its highly-regarded teaching hospitals, network of community-based health care centers and sophisticated research institutions, Greater Boston is a world-class health care hub.  But, as with other areas across the country, the growing cost of health care threatens to overshadow all other costs—and an alarming rise in chronic illness is only adding to the crisis.  The Boston Foundation has addressed the matter on two fronts: through a series of reports and forums titles "The Utility of Trouble" which has led to legislation that will help to stem the increases in healthcare costs for public employees and through the creation of the Healthy People Healthy Economy Coalition.

In 2007, and again in 2009, the Boston Foundation and NEHI published major reports that alerted our community to the growing crisis of preventable chronic disease among our state’s residents—which is driving up health care costs to the point where they are crowding out investments in virtually all other areas of community life. In 2010, the two organizations came together again to launch a powerful coalition, called Healthy People/Healthy Economy, with the goal of shifting our state’s focus from “health care” to “health,” and making Massachusetts the national leader in health and wellness.  In July 2011, the two organizations published the first annual report card on health.

Health & Human Services Spotlight:

Healthy People Healthy Economy First Annual Report Card This first Report Card presents the indicators we will be monitoring and contains benchmarks that will help us to measure our success going forward. We hope that future Report Cards will show marked improvements across all of the indicators we are tracking and reflect a dramatic paradigm shift—making Massachusetts a national leader not only in health care, but in all determinants of health. Learn more »

Indicators-related research: October 08, 2009 Connect to the Boston Indicators Project's Health sector for data, trends, research and resources. September 30, 2009 Child Food Inescurity: The Economic Impact on Our Nation July 01, 2009 Policy Action Brief: Food Insecurity Rates on the Rise		Selected grants: June 10, 2010 Sportsmens Tennis Club June 10, 2010 Playworks Boston December 17, 2009 New England Healthcare Institute
More Indicators-related research »		More »

  

Recent Health & Human Services Reports:

The Utility of Trouble: Municipal Health Plans: Gilded Benefits from a Bygone Era In recent years, the Boston Foundation has identified the rising cost of health insurance as a serious drain on state and local coffers. Despite the passage in 2007 of a new law allowing municipalities to join the Group Insurance Commission (GIC), and the fact that 15 municipalities in Greater Boston reported savings of more than $35 million in the first year of joining the GIC, progress has stalled. Read Report

The Utility of Trouble Municipal Health Care and the GIC: Success and Limitations Health insurance reform at the municipal level can provide significant relief to municipalities: that is documented in this policy brief. However, progress in moving municipalities to the GIC is now stalled because of the high threshold to negotiate into the state system, which requires coalition bargaining among all municipal labor unions. Read Report

The Utility of Trouble: Maximizing the Value of Our Human Services Dollars The delivery of human services has been revolutionized over the past 40 years, but in at least two important aspects Massachusetts has lagged—failing to reform the administrative structure of the human services agencies, and retaining too many large institutions for clients who could be better treated in community settings.  The analysis in this report focuses on the seven largest human services agencies within the EOHHS and recommends changes necessary to improve the quality of the services delivered. Read Report

The Utility of Trouble: Providing Pensions in Difficult Times: A Comprehensive Study of the Massachusetts Pension System and Its Impact on the City of Boston The Commonwealth and the cities and towns of Massachusetts are facing a long-term budget challenge of employee-related spending absorbing a larger share of limited revenue growth. The primary purpose of this report is to provide a comprehensive assessment of the Massachusetts retirement system and make a series of recommendations to significantly improve the management of the system and make it more equitable so that public employees receive the security and protection they need in a manner that is sustainable and fair to the taxpayers who fund them. Read Report

The Utility of Trouble: Leveling the Playing Field: Giving Municipal Officials the Tools to Moderate Health Insurance Costs Steeply rising health care costs are forcing cuts in municipal services to residents across the state, but communities could save significant amounts of money by changing the way they provide health care to municipal employees.  That is the lead finding of the Understanding Boston report, The Utility of Trouble: Leveling the Playing Field: Giving Municipal Officials the Tools to Moderate Health Insurance Costs. Read Report

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Health & Human Services Forums:

Healthy People in a Healthy Economy: A Blueprint for Action in Massachusetts June 29, 2009 Healthy People in a Healthy Economy: A Blueprint for Action in Massachusetts is the second report researched and written by the New England Healthcare Institute for the Boston Foundation.  The Boston Foundation and our partners at NEHI believe that the time has come to launch a comprehensive effort to address the rise in health care costs and the rising tide of preventable chronic disease through a campaign to improve overall health and fitness, building on the initial success of the Commonwealth‘s Mass in Motion campaign.  This Blueprint prescribes a number of reforms to address these issues.

Making it Through the Winter: Help for Greater Boston’s Vulnerable Residents October 27, 2008 As Greater Boston began to gird itself for a “perfect storm” for economically distressed households this winter, theBoston Foundation held anUnderstanding Boston forum on October 27th that brought together a panel of experts versed in emergency responses and familiar with populations most at risk. ModeratorDavid Boeri, veteran journalist and co-host ofWBUR’s programRadio Boston, began the discussion by sharing some startling statistics gathered by theBoston Indicators Project.

Preparing Foster Kids for Education, Work and Life June 05, 2008 Della Hughes and the other authors of an Understanding Boston report on youth ‘aging out’ of the state’s foster care system refer to the youth as “our kids,” because they believe that the Commonwealth, and by extension all of us, should consider ourselves the parents of youth in foster care.

The Boston Paradox: Lots of Health Care, Not Enough Health June 14, 2007 The report, titled The Boston Paradox, was commissioned by the Foundation and prepared by the New England Healthcare Institute (NEHI). It finds that despite Boston’s status as a world-class health care hub, a rising tide of preventable chronic disease threatens not only the physical health of Greater Boston’s residents but is starting to crowd out investment in a wide range of regional priorities.

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