June 30, 2026
Promoting and protecting public health through city-level policies: Lessons from CCHE’s evaluation of CityHealth
| When facing barriers at the state and federal levels, cities can advance evidence-based policies to promote and protect public health for their residents. CityHealth, an initiative of the de Beaumont Foundation and Kaiser Permanente (KP), works with the largest cities in the U.S. to advance a package of evidence-based policy solutions with the goal of helping people live longer, better lives in vibrant, prosperous communities. For seven years, CCHE partnered with CityHealth to learn about the implementation and impact of CityHealth policies in 23 cities located in the KP footprint. |
The CityHealth policy package consists of twelve policies that address root causes of health disparities, promote well-being, and prevent adverse health outcomes. Annually, CityHealth assesses the progress of the largest cities in the United States in adopting policies from this package and awards cities medals based on the policies adopted. |
From our evaluation, CCHE compiled a learning brief intended to support efforts to advance public health through local-level policy advancement by:
- Highlighting lessons learned from the initiative’s work in the KP footprint to inform policy efforts across the country. For example, there is no template for policy advancement; efforts need to be rooted in local context. However, policy advancement is supported by identifying policy windows, strong relationships, and local champions.
- Describing CityHealth’s unique structure and approach and how it contributed to policy advancement. In particular, the unique partnership between a public health foundation and a large-scale health care institution leveraged the strengths of each organization while also providing credibility, motivation, and concrete support for local efforts. CityHealth’s robust technical assistance structure also demonstrated how to support multiple policy topics within one initiative.
- Elevating examples of CityHealth’s potential to advance health in local communities. CCHE’s evaluation suggests that when CityHealth policies are implemented with fidelity and sufficient resources for robust enforcement, they have the potential to meaningfully impact community health in our nation’s largest cities.
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Check out the CityHealth Evaluation Learning Brief!
For more information on the CityHealth evaluation, please contact Monika Sanchez (Monika.A.Sanchez@kp.org). |