The Role of Health-Related Community Investing As a Strategy to Promote Active Living

Abstract

The National Prevention Strategy recognizes active living as a priority area for reducing the burden of chronic disease and emphasizes safe and healthy community environments as a key strategic direction to improve population health. New financial incentives created by legislation such as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, complemented by recent private sector interest in health-related community investing, provide an unprecedented opportunity to support healthy behaviors while improving areas where we live, learn, work, and play. In this article, we qualitatively explore health-related community investing strategies that can be leveraged to implement active living strategies to promote healthy behavior. We provide a synthesis of case examples illustrating innovative cross-sector partnerships and discuss promising new initiatives to align resources. We found that although such partnerships are increasing nationwide, targeted support for cross-sector engagement is needed to strategically align investments, replicate and scale efforts, and maximize collective impact.