Aetna Foundation Pledges Funding To 25 Community-Based Nonprofits To Promote Active Living and Increase Access To Healthy Foods
With a new round of grants, the philanthropic arm of Aetna is getting out of doctors’ offices and into the neighborhoods where Americans live, work and play to improve health outcomes. The foundation pledged $2 million in grants to 25 community-based nonprofits to promote active living and increase access to healthy foods.
The grants tackle unequal access to everyday things that make us healthier in the long term, like spaces for exercise and affordable, healthy food in the neighborhoods where we live. Eating healthy and exercising guard against obesity and other chronic and expensive diseases, but those preventative measures only benefit those who have access to them. That group is financially secure and disproportionately white.
“We use the social determinants of health as a lens in our grantmaking strategy, because we know that local conditions have a tremendous impact on a person’s health outcomes,” said Amy Aparicio Clark, a senior program officer at the foundation.
Essentially what it boils down to is that a lot of our health is determined by where we live, much of which is determined by factors outside our control, like race and financial security...