Grantee Video
TEDMED 2013
Gary Slutkin, the Founder/Executive Director of Cure Violence, spoke at TEDMED, asking the crowd gathered in DC, "What if we treated violence like a contagious disease?"
Vulnerable Populations
Grantee Evaluation
Does Better Recess Equal a Better School Day?
A new study of our grantee, Playworks, finds that a safe and healthy recess has the potential to drive better student behavior, health, and learning.
Grantee Video
Preventing the Onset of Severe Mental Illness: Lessons Learned
Launched in 2007 at six sites across the country, EDIPPP has gathered evidence to show the value of engaging communities toward preventing severe mental illness in young people.
Feature
The Truth About ACEs
A growing network of leaders is pioneering how we diminish the impact of adverse childhood experiences. Learn about what ACEs are, their prevalence and their impact.
Grantee Evaluation
First Place for Youth: Foundation for Life After Foster Care
An evaluation of First Place for Youth found that youth involvement has led to positive in-program outcomes for youth in housing, education, employment and healthy living.
Grantee Research
Strengthening and Sustaining Children's Mental Health Services
"Improving Access to Children's Mental Health Care: Lessons from a Study of Eleven States" - a new report from the Center for Health and Health Care Services - exposes barriers and opportunities for children's mental health under expansion of the Affordable Care Act.
Policy Brief
Investing in Boys and Young Men of Color: The Promise and Opportunity
This policy brief highlights key challenges, recommendations, and ideas for action to improve health, education, and employment outcomes for young men of color.
About the Program
The Vulnerable Populations Portfolio creates new opportunities for better health by investing in health where it starts—in our homes, schools and jobs.
Forward Promise Call for Proposals
Young people require support from their families, schools, communities, and society as they move toward becoming healthy and productive adults. This is especially true for middle school- and high school-aged boys and young men, many of whom encounter barriers that make the path to adulthood especially challenging.
More than 1,200 proposals were submitted to our recent Call for Proposals. Our approach to this process has been informed by research and the more than 300 submissions that we received from the Call for Ideas we hosted last year.
Learn moreMaisha Simmons Q&A: New Opportunities for Young Men of Color Through Collaboration
"The options for our young men of color have been too limited for too long." In this interview with the NewPublicHealth Blog, Maisha Simmons, program officer, discusses why the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation launched the Forward Promise initiative.
Time for more focus on young men of color
"It’s in our nation’s schools where our young men start to really fall behind." This Washington Post article, authored by Maisha Simmons, highlights the importance of supporting young men of color.
A Framework for the Healthcare Discussion
A New Way to Talk About the Social Determinants of Health
Health starts—and is sustained—where we live, learn, work, and play.
Over the course of four years, RWJF undertook an iterative research and message development process informed by both traditional and nontraditional research techniques. This work has helped us communicate more effectively, and we believe in sharing this information with others. In A New Way to Talk About the Social Determinants of Health, we share a way to create more compelling, effective, and persuasive messages that resonate across the political spectrum.
Available in this Report
- Messaging guide, including best practices in language and framing of social determinants of health.
- Webinar slides and recording from event co-hosted by Grantmakers in Health to present the new messaging framework.
- Essays about the integral link between our health and key social factors.
Some of the Twitter Hashtags we use and follow
#SDOH | #RXsocial | #StartEmpathy | #SEL | #ToxicStress | #ForwardPromise
Health Care's Blind Side
Exploring Solutions that Address Patients' Social Needs
In April, we hosted a discussion with prominent health care leaders to explore solutions to address patients' social needs. Participants posed ways to connect patients to needed resources in the community that can improve their health. They also discussed and debated the business case for physicians, clinics, and hospitals to bridge the gap in treating medical and social needs.
Our grantee Health Leads represented one solution that is effectively integrating patients' social needs into health care delivery.
View the webinar presentation and forum discussion
Read results from a national survey of physicansStaff Picks: What We're Reading
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The Sense of an Ending
Article at the New Yorker that tells the story of how an Arizona nursing home is offering new ways to care for people with dementia. (Subscription required to view full article)
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Poverty as a Childhood Disease
Dr. Perri Klass writes about how poverty impacts children’s dispositions and leads to poor academic achievement, high dropout rates, and health problems from obesity and diabetes to heart disease, substance abuse and mental illness.
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What Does It Take for Traumatized Kids to Thrive?
Post at Pacific Magazine focuses on programs in Washington state that focus on toxic stress, resilience and adverse childhood experiences.
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Poverty Impacts Developing Brains
Dr. Jack Shonkoff, director of the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University, discusses how adversity and stress can affect a child's biology.