Dr Risa Lavizzo-Mourey Explains RWJF's Culture of Health

Transcript (slightly modified)

What is the Culture of Health that RWJF is working to build?

At the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation we're trying to build a Culture of Health, which basically means giving everyone the opportunity to make the kind of healthy choices that will allow them to live a long and productive life. It also mans being sure that we're getting the most out of our healthcare dollars and that our healthcare systems and public healthcare systems are really able to deliver high-value healthcare.

So building a Culture of Health is something that really involves everyone. It means working across sectors, it involves the health community, the healthcare community, as well as businesses and other community organizations that can really provide those opportunities for people to make the healthy choice, the easy choice.

How does promoting a Culture of Health require us to think differently?

One of the things that we've learned as a nation is that health involves a lot of things that are inter-related. And so while for years we've been focusing on trying to improve things like childhood obesity or smoking rates or other single factors that are associated with health, in actuality if we're going to really build a Culture of Health, we're going to have to realize that these are inter-connected. And we've got to work across systems to make sure that the healthy decisions are part of everything that we do, not just thinking about our physical activity or what we eat, but really a part of the entire fabric of our culture.