The Reinvestment Fund and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Launch Invest Health

PHILADELPHIA, Nov. 9, 2015 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Reinvestment Fund and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) announced today the launch of Invest Health, a pioneering, multi-sector initiative that will align people, strategies and capital to improve health in cities across the country. The initiative aims to transform the way city leaders work together to help all communities thrive, with specific attention to factors that drive health in low-income neighborhoods, including a scarcity of quality jobs, affordable housing and nutritious food, high crime rates and unhealthy environmental conditions.

Invest Health will support new partnerships in up to 50 mid-sized cities across the nation. Mid-sized cities offer fertile ground for strategies that improve health and have the potential to boost local economies. Mid-sized cities are where the majority of Americans live and where many experience some of nation's deepest challenges with entrenched poverty, poor health, and lack of investment.

"Good health is the bedrock of prosperity, so it's more important than ever that we invest in communities where health challenges are greatest," said Donald Schwarz, MD, RWJF director.  "Invest Health aims to give all families—especially in places hit hardest by poverty and poor health—the opportunity and the means to live the healthiest life possible."

Invest Health was developed in response to the RWJF Commission to Build a Healthier America's recommendation that we, as a nation, fundamentally change how we revitalize neighborhoods by fully incorporating health into community development. Invest Health puts this recommendation into action by supporting a learning community where participating cities will better define community challenges, devise solutions, and bring together capital and other funding to build healthier, more equitable communities.  

"Like RWJF, The Reinvestment Fund has a long history of advancing health and equity through strategic investments," said Amanda High, Chief of Strategic Initiatives at The Reinvestment Fund. "In joining forces to spearhead a national initiative, we hope to transform the way cities approach community development—and to catalyze investments for healthy communities at a groundbreaking scale that will improve the lives of people across the country."

Participating cities will be selected through a competitive process that begins in mid-December 2015. To find out more about Invest Health, go to www.investhealth.org.

About The Reinvestment Fund

The Reinvestment Fund is a national leader in rebuilding America's distressed towns and cities through the innovative use of capital and information. The Reinvestment Fund has made $1.5 billion in community investments since 1985. A community development financial institution, The Reinvestment Fund finances a variety of projects and activities including food access, health care, education and housing, to build healthy communities in under-invested places. The Reinvestment Fund also provides public policy expertise by helping clients create actionable solutions and by sharing data and analysis via www.PolicyMap.com. The Reinvestment Fund is rated AA by Standard and Poor and AAA+1 by Aeris. Learn more at trfund.com.

About the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation

For more than 40 years the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has worked to improve health and health care. We are striving to build a national Culture of Health that will enable all to live longer, healthier lives now and for generations to come. For more information, visit www.rwjf.org. Follow the Foundation on Twitter at www.rwjf.org/twitter or on Facebook at www.rwjf.org/facebook.

SOURCE The Reinvestment Fund

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