[Music]
Investments in community health yield results
making it easier to be healthy where we live,
learn, work, and play.
All these healthy initiatives are really economic development
at its core.
So, we have customers who are buying these healthy options.
We have a business owner who's making more money.
And, as a community, we're benefiting too
because we have a healthier workforce, fewer sick days,
less absenteeism, [and] more productivity.
I can't think another thing that we could
be doing that's more important.
Live. The impact that’s being made
on the community right now is beyond my wildest dreams.
So, this is an opportunity to really think
our cities through again.
The healthy lifestyles are the number one ambition.
We really are about the people and the neighborhoods
not so much about the streets and the automobiles.
We have implemented a tobacco-free environment at Capital
Metro and it has proven to be a huge benefit (60,000 passengers
benefit) and actually something that's been very popular with our passengers
and the community in general.
The Community Asthma Initiative is
a program that addresses asthma disparities in Boston.
What's really remarkable is that we've
had an 80 percent reduction in the need for hospitalizations
for children and 60 percent reduction in children with any emergency
department visits.
Diabetes was really a closeted issue.
Today, it's really a community conversation.
We've reduced amputations by 50 percent.
That translates into a cost savings of about $2 million
per year.
We work with Pacific Islander and Southeast Asian women
around breast and cervical cancer.
After our program, 70 percent of the women got screened,
and they get screened regularly, on an annual basis.
Learn. It’s the role of every school
to promote a healthy lifestyle.
When this information came out, that this
might be the first generation that will have a lower life
expectancy than their parents, we
decided that's unacceptable for us as Cherokees.
Bronx Health piloted an initiative
in a number of Bronx schools to start
offering low-fat, no-fat milk.
The Office of SchoolFood decided to do it system wide.
(Nearly 6,000 calories and 620 grams of fat were avoided, per milk drinker, annually.)
Healthy students equal successful students.
If they are eating right, if they are physically active,
they're going to do better in school;
they're going to score better on tests.
Research has shown that over and over.
Work. There are benefits for owners
of stores and the community in general.
All the little changes, all the little steps
you can take along the way provide
a healthier and safer place for people to live and work.
We sell twice as much produce a week than we ever have.
On the weekends, I had around 200 customers.
Now, I have 500 customers.
Ten businesses in our downtown, which
are small businesses that wouldn't ordinarily
implement a wellness program, now
have set goals and made changes around smoking cessation,
and exercise, and nutrition.
I think our employees understand that we
are interested in a holistic, healthy lifestyle.
And the policies that we've put in place encourage that.
If a downtown is healthy, if the employees that work there are
healthy, and the residents are healthy,
then more people will want to live there, work there,
and play there.
Play. Well-maintained, good parks
generate higher property values. It's a win-win situation.
We are working with the parks department
and we had these free fitness-in-the-parks classes
that the community has really embraced.
The response to Bike Share in San Antonio has been phenomenal
(almost 3,100 bike checkouts per month). It's exceeded our expectations.
Everywhere where we have said no to secondhand smoke,
where we have said no to smoking,
they are overflowing with people who
are spending money, who are enjoying life and enjoying
the various amenities that we have for them.
(4 million Santa Monica Pier visitors per year).
Yes, it's wonderful that it has helped us market our properties
more successfully
but healthier residents as part of our communities,
that's the real, real benefit here.
Across the country, folks could use these ideas
in their own community and see how making folks healthier
really helps community and economic development.
Community health: preventing disease, saving money, and improving lives.