Interventions by Sector

Many public health interventions have positive implications for other sectors, such as education and crime. Similarly, other interventions that traditionally fall outside public health can have a major impact on public health. When public health and other sectors recognize the potential for mutual benefit, major advances in both sectors can be achieved through collaboration. 

Healthy outcomes at one point in the life cycle can have enormous implications for health later in life. Investing in people’s health throughout the life cycle, from pre-birth through their senior years, is an important, effective and efficient way of promoting population health. 

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation envisions a Culture of Health in which every person has equal opportunity to live the healthiest possible life. The Culture of Health Action Areas Framework translates the broad range of sectors and people involved in building a Culture of Health into four interconnected Action Areas:

Action Area 1: making health a shared value where people appreciate the importance of achieving, maintaining, and reclaiming health as a shared priority.

Action Area 2: fostering cross-sector collaboration so that health systems, businesses, local health departments, community organizations, individuals, and federal agencies all see opportunities for alignment and success.

Action Area 3: creating healthier, more equitable communities by addressing head-on the chronic environmental and policy conditions that hold back too many Americans from living in good health.

Action Area 4: strengthening integration of health systems and services so it’s driven by a focus on prevention, the integration of health services and systems, and the delivery of comprehensive, high-value care for all Americans.