Building Healthier Cities Through Philanthropy and Policy

“What [Bloomberg] understood more than anybody else is that the prescription for better health is policy, because every one of our conversations in this country around health devolves into a conversation of pills and procedures, where it needs to be a conversation about policies and partnerships,” said Brian Castrucci in an interview with NPQ. Castrucci, president and CEO of the public health nonprofit de Beaumont Foundation and spokesperson for its CityHealth initiative, emphasized the power of this approach: “That’s how we make every city in this country healthier. That’s how we have a stronger economy. That’s how we have thriving communities.”

Globally, 4.2 billion people currently live in urban areas, but that number is expected to rise by two-thirds by 2050. In the United States, over 80 percent of the population lives in urban centers. Here, the prevalence of noncommunicable diseases—heart disease, diabetes, cancers, and obesity—are particularly high, influenced by environmental factors such as toxic air, unsafe roads, limited space for physical activity, and a lack of green space. Yet at the same time, cities have the power to influence people’s health in a positive way.

Tom Baker, associate professor at the University of Auckland’s School of Environment in New Zealand, has conducted research on Bloomberg’s city-focused philanthropy. As Baker told NPQ, “There’s a prevailing perspective that [cities are] better attuned to the needs of local populations than national government…and that city governments are closer to their populations, but also less encumbered by bureaucratic processes and inefficiencies than national and supranational institutions are. There’s this common framing of city governments as places where you can get things done.”