New PI paper introduces Prevention and Wellness Funds and describes their structure, function and potential

Download the full report here.

The health care and public health sectors have been abuzz in recent months with talk of prevention and wellness funds. Strong evidence shows that changing community environments to better support health is both effective and needed, yet sustainable funding sources for community prevention remain elusive. Prevention and Wellness Funds provide a potential sustainable solution to these funding hurdles.

 A Prevention and Wellness Fund comprises a pool of funds raised to finance community prevention interventions as part of health improvement and cost-containment strategies.

Prevention Institute’s new paper, Sustainable Investments in Health: Prevention and Wellness Funds, provides background to readers not yet familiar with the concept of a Prevention and Wellness Fund.  It explores a crucial set of questions: how Funds can generate revenue; how they should be managed and where they should invest; how to assess effectiveness; and how to emphasize health equity. This report was produced following a series of interviews with subject matter experts chosen for their experience with prevention and public health initiatives and their expertise in creating dedicated funding streams for prevention.

From the paper:

A Prevention and Wellness Fund creates a strategic and coordinated approach at a national, state, regional, or local level to implement evidence-informed and practice-based community prevention activities designed to decrease rates of preventable health conditions, reduce costs, reduce health inequities, and to create environments that support health and safety with the aim of improving population health, one of the three pillars of the Triple Aim.

Download the full report here.

Sustainable Investments in Health: Prevention and Wellness Funds works well as a companion document to Closing the Loop, which outlines the need to invest and reinvent in prevention.