Kaiser Permanente Community Health Fund
$400,000 won
Narrative Approach
Verified Win

The Kaiser 'upstream determinants' framing: why social factors beat clinical interventions

Kaiser's community health strategy prioritizes upstream social determinants (housing, food, income) over downstream clinical interventions. Proposals framed as 'healthcare access' or 'clinical services' lose to proposals framed as addressing root causes.

Michael O'Brien

Executive Director

Sacramento Food Health Collaborative

45 upvotes

The Strategy

Kaiser Permanente's community health funding has shifted decisively upstream. In 2023-2024, funded projects addressed housing stability, food access, and economic mobility — not clinical service expansion. If your proposal leads with 'we provide healthcare to underserved populations,' you're competing against hundreds of FQHCs. If you lead with 'we stabilize housing to reduce avoidable ED utilization,' you're in the funded pool. The framing pivot: replace 'healthcare access' language with 'health driver' language. Instead of 'we increase access to diabetes care,' write 'we address food insecurity as the primary driver of diabetes in our…

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