Our Role & Results

OK, so we've been doing a lot of blog-tificating.  But what is it that we are doing to make things better?  And are we really still needed--if we ever were?

When I founded what became Healthy Future US, I knew our task was extremely difficult. (As they say: “if it was easy, it would have been done already.”)  But I thought it would be quicker & easier than it has been.  After all, wasn't it increasingly obvious that our health and related costs were devastatingly out of control, with an urgent need to address the primary root causes of inactivity & unhealthy nutrition?

As we enter Year 8 of full-time social entrepreneurship & advocacy, it's helpful to review our track record and rethink our future based on lessons learned.  This blog format is not great for lengthy explanations, but here are a few key points:

- Start-ups always take longer and cost more than you think--even more so in the social sector, where public-policy timeframes stretch into decades.

- The status quo is incredibly entrenched and hard to change, across the board: whether education, health, business, government, etc.

- Yet key trends are starting to favor prevention & school-based approaches, e.g., key supporting data & evidence-based strategies, health sector incentives, awareness of the role of social determinants of health, pandemic-era perspective on preexisting conditions & inequities, concerns about the consequences of such narrow K-12 education, etc.

- Healthy Future US has hit key milestones, including: 

-- a state & national network of highly respected advisors; 

-- a systematic systemic evidence-&-ROI-based plan; 

-- the AZ school recess law, increasing physical activity by 50% for 250,000 K-5 students; 

-- the AZ State Board of Ed resolution & potential approaches to add PE, health & arts education to the state school A-F accountability system, providing a compelling incentive for school superintendents to invest more school time & resources in PE & health ed; 

-- a comprehensive credible ROI case for health sector investment in K-12 health promotion, showing major immediate, near-term & long-term savings potential for providers, plans, agencies, businesses & legislatures; 

-- a national oped with Heritage Foundation, while continuing to work on a nonpartisan basis with both conservative & progressive leaders.

Yet we have still barely scratched the surface, in terms of our ultimate metrics of reversing the preventable chronic disease epidemic.  

The need is there more than ever for our role in catalyzing the critical combination of Plans & People, Policies, Programs, & Payment with Payback, in order to scalably, cost-effectively, & sustainably move the needle on our nation's health--starting through schools. We have gotten frustrated many times along the way, but have also made a lot of progress--and we have barely begun to fight!