A New Partnership Helps Us Improve Health Outcomes

Our commitment to collaboration creates partnerships that improve the health of the communities we serve. One of the latest partnerships is with the City of Roanoke.

Roanoke recently announced a partnership with Carilion Clinic and United Way of Roanoke Valley as part of the 2021 “Cities of Opportunity” learning network led by the National League of Cities.

“We’re excited to collaborate with Roanoke City and United Way in this new learning series,” said Shirley Holland, vice president for community development and planning. “This in-depth learning network will help us grow existing collaborations with city government, the public health department and community organizations. Our focus will be how to improve health outcomes and advance health equity.”

The World Health Organization defines health equity as the absence of unfair and avoidable or remediable differences in health among population groups defined socially, economically, demographically or geographically.

Roanoke Mayor Sherman P. Lea calls the collaborative “the latest initiative in the long history of an outstanding partnership with Carilion Clinic and United Way” to continue to improve the health and lives of all city residents.

NLC selected Roanoke because of its commitment to advancing programs, policies and practices to help address health equity and improve health outcomes. Prior work with NLC has helped the city adopt a Comprehensive Plan emphasizing these goals.

The Center to Advance Community Health & Equity at the Public Health Institute and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation are the NLC’s partners in Cities of Opportunity. Through July of this year, the partners will join local officials to look at factors affecting life expectancy and help make resilience an essential part of the community. The partnership will join nine other municipalities in the NLC’s Cities and Health Systems Community of Practice; they will review opportunities to change government structures, economic policies and systems considered longtime stumbling blocks for members of marginalized communities.

“The root causes of poor health, or the factors influencing how well we live and how long we live, lead to distinct inequities resulting in significant differences in the quality and length of life among residents across the country,” said Sue Polis, director of Health and Wellness at the National League of Cities. “The National League of Cities is proud to work with the City of Roanoke in its efforts to turn this unprecedented time and its myriad of challenges into an opportunity to build a new, bright and more equitable future for all Roanoke residents.”

For more information, contact Shirley Holland at sbholland@carilionclinic.org or City of Roanoke Community Engagement Manager Tiffany Bradbury at Tiffany.Bradbury@roanokeva.gov.