Healthy Generations

Central to the efforts of the WellPoint Foundation is the Healthy Generations program, a multigenerational initiative to improve public health.

The nine areas of focus within Healthy Generations are based on the State Health Index, which incorporates public health data from the 14 states WellPoint’s Blue-licensed affiliates serve, to identify major health issues. By providing a snapshot of the overall health of each state’s population, it helps us select where to concentrate our energies. Today, we’re emphasizing efforts that fight childhood obesity because we recognize that reducing obesity lessens risks for many severe health conditions such as diabetes and heart disease.

Childhood Obesity

Overweight adolescents have a 70 percent chance of becoming overweight or obese adults and are at greater risk of developing type 2 diabetes, according to a 2007 report from the Office of the Surgeon General. To help reduce the incidence of child and adolescent obesity, the WellPoint Foundation supports grants that encourage education and behavior modification and promote active lifestyles.

Healthy Habits for Healthy Kids

Healthy Habits for Healthy Kids is a collaborative effort with the Dole Nutrition Institute (DNI), to address the growing concerns about childhood obesity among America’s youth. This children-friendly publication has been developed to educate families on the long-term importance of living active, healthy lifestyles.

By encouraging millions of children to make lasting health behavior changes, together we are saving lives, inspiring healthy lifestyles and motivating our youth to help others. The publication is available for free download at www.wellpointfoundation.org.

OASIS Active Generations Program

A grant from the WellPoint Foundation supports the implementation of OASIS’s Active Generations Program in eight states. This intergenerational nutrition and activity program partners elementary school children with older adult volunteers who work with them.

Active Generations helps address the major health problem facing children today, obesity, by using CATCH (Coordinated Approach to Child Health), an evidence-based, nationally recognized school nutrition/physical activity curriculum. CATCH has scientifically demonstrated that environments can be created that effect healthy behavioral changes in children.

Premature Births and Low Birthweight

More than 540,000 babies are born too soon each year in the United States, and preterm births cost the nation more than $26 billion annually, according to the Institute of Medicine. In an effort to improve these outcomes, pregnant women in eight states receive prenatal services and education from the March of Dimes, which is dedicated to preventing birth defects, premature birth, and infant mortality, thanks to a generous grant from the WellPoint Foundation. The grant supports three critical March of Dimes programs.

Centering Pregnancy

A disturbing number of women – estimated at 11.3 percent – receive late or no prenatal care, according to the National Center for Health Statistics. In particular, African American women are nearly three times as likely as non-Hispanic whites to receive inadequate prenatal care. The Centering Pregnancy program teaches care skills and offers support networks to women and their children, with an emphasis on reducing racial disparities in poor birth outcomes.

Preterm Labor Assessment Toolkit

One out of eight babies in the United States is born prematurely, exposing him or her to the risk of mental retardation, learning problems, cerebral palsy, and vision and hearing loss, according to the National Center for Health Statistics. The Preterm Labor Assessment Toolkit helps improve the health of premature babies by providing standardized hospital procedures, which allows for timely interventions, a decrease in unnecessary treatments, and improved safety for mothers and babies.

Smoking Cessation

The U.S. Public Health Service estimates that if all pregnant women in the country stopped smoking, there would be an 11 percent reduction in stillbirths and a 5 percent reduction in newborn deaths. Currently, 10 percent of women smoke during pregnancy. The March of Dimes is committed to reducing this rate. It provides educational materials, promotes evidence-based methods to help people quit, and supports projects that provide smoking-cessation services to pregnant women who smoke.

First Trimester Prenatal Care

Preterm birth (birth before 37 weeks’ gestation) is a serious health problem and is among the leading causes of newborn death, according to the National Center for Health Statistics. Prenatal care is an important part of a healthy pregnancy; known strategies can lower the risk of an early birth. The WellPoint Foundation supports grants that encourage and facilitate first trimester prenatal care.

Nurse-Family Partnership

A WellPoint Foundation grant to the Nurse-Family Partnership (NFP) program helps communities implement a nurse home visitation program to improve pregnancy outcomes, infant health and development, and self-sufficiency for at-risk, low-income women and their families in eight states.

Diabetes Prevalence

According to the American Diabetes Association (ADA), diabetes affects nearly 24 million Americans. And some 57 million have prediabetes, which puts them at a much higher risk for developing type 2 diabetes. The ADA, with funding from the WellPoint Foundation, offers programs to educate people about diabetes and to promote research that will lead to cures and strategies for prevention.

Alert Day

The WellPoint Foundation supports the ADA’s annual Alert Day, which raises awareness about risk factors. With our support, the 2009 Alert Day enjoyed record media exposure and record participation in risk assessments.

Stop Diabetes Toolkits

The WellPoint Foundation also helps fund the distribution of thousands of ADA Stop Diabetes Toolkits, increasing knowledge about the disease in the 14 states we serve.

Smoking Cessation

More than 392,000 people a year in America die from tobacco-related causes; 50,000 more die from exposure to secondhand smoke, according to the American Lung Association (ALA). The WellPoint Foundation supports the efforts of the ALA in several states to help smokers quit. Programs supported by the grants target adults, teens and pregnant women who smoke.

Freedom from Smoking (FFS)

FFS clinics train facilitators and offer education and support to adult smokers who want to quit, including lectures, discussions, skills practice and maintenance advice.

Breathe Smart from the Start (BSFS)

The BSFS curriculum is incorporated into prenatal and parenting classes, where participants learn about the hazards of secondhand smoke and smoking during pregnancy.

Not-on-Tobacco (N-O-T)

Funding from the WellPoint Foundation helps maintain N-O-T, a program that helps adolescents reduce or quit smoking; increase physical activity and nutrition; and improve stress-management, decision-making, coping and interpersonal skills.

Adult Influenza Immunizations

Because the senior population is at particular risk for illness or death from the flu and its complications, the WellPoint Foundation supports programs that encourage influenza immunizations among members of this age group.

Jewish Family Services

A grant from the WellPoint Foundation supports this organization’s Immunizations for Homebound Seniors program, which administers flu vaccines to low-income, homebound seniors in the Richmond, Va., area. Nurses from the program also teach clients and their families how to prevent the spread of flu and other infectious diseases.

Adult Pneumococcal Immunizations

Millions of Americans don’t receive recommended vaccinations against pneumonia, leading to thousands of preventable deaths and illnesses and billions in avoidable health care costs. The WellPoint Foundation’s support is helping increase the immunization rate among seniors.

Eastern Virginia Medical School

A WellPoint Foundation grant helps fund Project Immunize Virginia (PIV), supporting the development of a simple toolkit for senior groups. The toolkit tailors messages to specific audiences – for example, African Americans – and encourages vaccination, with the goal of raising the immunization rate from 66 percent to 82 percent among this population.

Cardiac Morbidity in Adults

Every 34 seconds in the United States, someone dies of heart disease. It is the leading cause of death, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimate that it will cost the country $316.4 billion in 2010 in health care services, medication and lost productivity. The WellPoint Foundation supports a number of efforts to combat this problem.

American Heart Association

Grants from the WellPoint Foundation support American Heart Association activities in several of the states we serve.

Get with the Guidelines®—Stroke

The American Heart Association of Virginia is working to improve prevention and treatment of acute and ischemic strokes. A grant from the WellPoint Foundation supports the development of Primary Stroke Centers in hospitals and identifies champions to mobilize teams to implement state-of-the-art guidelines for care.

CPR Anytime Program

In Indiana, WellPoint Foundation funding supports the American Heart Association’s CPR Anytime Program. The program provides educational materials developed to increase lifesaving knowledge and awareness among people who have not attended CPR courses. CPR Anytime aims to train entire families in just 22 minutes how to perform CPR.

University of Louisville Research Foundation

A WellPoint Foundation grant supports the Louisville Healthy Heart Project, which provides comprehensive risk assessments for cardiovascular disease. Follow-up efforts include customized interventions based on assessment results and include education, smoking cessation programs, nutrition and physical activity counseling, and drug therapies.

Increasing Physical Activity

Regular physical activity helps reduce the risk of heart disease, high blood pressure, colon cancer and diabetes. It also improves mental well-being, assists with weight control, reduces depression and anxiety, and helps healthy muscles, bones and joints. The WellPoint Foundation supports these vital goals through a number of programs.

YMCA of Metropolitan Atlanta

A grant from the WellPoint Foundation helped this YMCA work with clinically obese adults to reduce their body mass index and thus their risk for diabetes. Participants enrolled in the Make a Positive Change program are given YMCA memberships and access to wellness coaches who help them develop personalized exercise routines to help reduce their risks associated with obesity. Efforts were focused on lower-income African American and Latino adults, since these two populations have a particularly high incidence of diabetes.

South City YMCA

The WellPoint Foundation supports the Fit for Life program at the South City Family YMCA of St. Louis, which promotes physical fitness, strength training, and wellness education among people with high risk factors for cardiovascular disease and diabetes. Through this program, people who would not normally have the resources to join the YMCA have access to expertise and services that can help them improve their health.