Aetna Foundation: Healthiest Cities and Counties Challenge

The Healthiest Cities and Counties Challenge is a collaboration between the Aetna Foundation, the American Public Health Association, and the National Association of Counties to encourage small to mid-sized U.S. cities and counties to create a positive health impact. The Challenge will identify the best practices for achieving city and county health, wellness, and health equity. Additionally, the Challenge promotes collaboration and community-wide involvement and will identify nationally replicable models of health.

Competing cities and counties will move the needle toward creating healthier and more equitable communities using measurable criteria over the course of several years. Administered by CEOs for Cities, the Challenge will award prizes to cities and counties that build cross-sector teams around health issues of critical importance to their communities. The goal of the Challenge is to develop practical, evidence-based strategies to improve measurable social and health outcomes and promote health and wellness, equity and social interaction.

The Foundation believes a healthy city/county is economically competitive, inclusive, and equitable. It wants to meet communities where they are and look for measurable ways to improve health through the following: 1) Healthy Behaviors, considering metrics related to tobacco use, nutrition, and physical activity; 2) Community Safety, considering community violence as the metric; 3) Built Environment, considering metrics related to food quality and walkability, bikeability, and transit use; 4) Social/Economic Factors, considering metrics of housing affordability, education attainment, and living wage; and 5) Environmental Exposures, considering children exposed to secondhand smoke in the home, air quality, and water quality.

Amount: A total of $1,500,000 is available. The prize structure is detailed below:

• Tier 1 (65,000-250,000 population): One grand prize of $250,000 and four $25,000 runner-up prizes will be awarded
• Tier 2 (250,001-600,000 population): One grand prize of $500,000 and four $50,000 runner-up prizes will be awarded

Eligibility: Cities, counties, and tribal nations within specific population parameters are eligible to participate. Two tiers of participants are defined based on population size as noted above.

Note: A city/county that is under 65,000 in population may join with another city/county to meet the population range requirements.

Link: http://www.healthiestcities.org/

Note: Webinars will be held on the following dates to provide an overview of the Challenge: April 11, April 14, and April 19, 2016.

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