RWJF

Promoting Health Through Primary Care
Low levels of physical activity is among several lifestyle behaviors, including unhealthy diet, tobacco use, and abuse of alcohol and illegal drugs, that contribute to the leading causes of death in the United States. Changing people’s behavior could go a long way toward reducing the incidence of and deaths from these conditions. But behavior change is one of the most challenging issues facing health care professionals. A new initiative approved in 2002, Prescription for Health: Promoting Healthy Behaviors in Primary Care Research Networks, authorizes up to $9 million over five years to develop, field test and disseminate innovative interventions for primary care-based health behavior change counseling.

Americans visit their primary care physician an average of three times a year. Research shows that they respect the advice they receive in physicians’ offices and are motivated to act on it. Doctors need to know how to integrate the body of research on behavioral change into their practices, where they generally have between seven and 19 minutes per patient visit, and where little or no reimbursement is available for counseling about healthy behaviors. Prescription for Health calls for approaches to be tested in practice-based research networks—primary care practices that collaborate to conduct research—then widely disseminated to primary care groups throughout the country. Grantees will focus specifically on reducing the incidence of harmful behaviors such as risky drinking, physical inactivity, unhealthy diet and tobacco use. The Foundation hopes this program can help practitioners on the front lines of health care lead the way for active, healthy living.

Volunteering to Improve Community Health
As a senior volunteer in the Foundation-supported Experience Corps^®, retired secretary Annette Mitchell, 69, donates her time and professional experience as a tutor and teaching assistant in her neighborhood’s elementary school. Experience Corps recruits retired professionals like Mitchell to support their communities with work that is gratifying, important, and health enhancing. Experience Corps emphasizes social connections, with volunteers working in teams of eight to 10 per school. “It’s what I needed,” Mitchell says about the sense of personal satisfaction gained from helping a first-grader with reading difficulties improve her literacy skills.

In 2002, the Foundation awarded Public Private Ventures a $750,000 grant to evaluate the Experience Corps program. Evidence suggests the program benefits both the students and the volunteers. Formal evaluations show that children in classrooms assisted by Experience Corps volunteers improve reading scores and overall academic performance, have fewer behavior problems, and exhibit greater self-confidence and cooperation. Gerontology research indicates that strong social networks and productive activity help preserve good health among the elderly. Currently, 1,000 Experience Corps volunteers serve in 100 neighborhood schools in 14 cities. With additional support from other funders, many more sites will be developed over the next five years.

While Experience Corps volunteers work to strengthen student learning and seniors’ health status, a program in Louisiana uses neighbor-to-neighbor outreach to connect people in a community with local health and social supports. In the Shreveport-Bossier Community Renewal program, paid staff and volunteers establish “haven houses” as resources in distressed neighborhoods. Haven-house residents strengthen supportive relationships and decrease social isolation by helping neighbors to get to know and help one another. This project was first supported in 1995 by a grant from the RWJF Faith in Action^® program. In 2002, the Foundation authorized $728,326 to train community leaders in Shreveport to further develop local outreach, continue a communications plan to encourage volunteering and intensify efforts to move strong families into targeted neighborhoods.

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