Healthy Healthcare
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As employers, healthcare providers, and anchor institutions, healthcare organizations hold a significant interest in the health of their employees and patients. They also have a key leadership role to play in helping to create healthier communities by modeling policy, systems, and environmental changes that can shift the social norms that promote chronic disease and premature death. As the COVID-19 pandemic demonstrates, diet-related chronic diseases such as heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and hypertension contribute to health inequities in multiple ways. Sugary drinks are the largest source of added sugar in the U.S. diet and a key risk factor for diet-related chronic diseases, which is why public health experts agree that consumption of sugary drinks is one of the social norms that must be changed.
The Public Health Law Center and the American Cancer Society have partnered to update the Center’s Healthy Healthcare Toolkit, which is designed to help organizations create healthier food environments with a special focus on hospital and healthcare settings. Although the toolkit focuses on beverages and healthcare settings, many of the principles and approaches outlined in it also can be applied to food environments and to other types of organizational settings as well.
The Healthy Healthcare Toolkit includes the following resources:
Building Blocks for Success
This guide is the core of the Toolkit. It describes key components that go into developing successful healthy beverage policies and initiatives.
Beverage Policies & Drinks with Artificial Sweeteners
This fact sheet answers some of the commonly asked questions about artificial sweeteners and discusses considerations around including artificially sweetened products in hospital food and beverage policies.
Food and Beverage Pledges for Hospitals and Healthcare Systems
This fact sheet provides a summary of national and regional voluntary pledge programs that focus on improving the food and beverage environments within organizational settings.
Frequently Asked Questions About Healthy Beverage Programs
This fact sheet provides responses for the questions that have typically come up when healthcare organizations have implemented healthy beverage programs.
Healthcare Can Lead the Way - Making the Healthy Choice the Easy Choice
This fact sheet explains how healthcare facilities are uniquely situated to both lead and benefit from healthy beverage policies and initiatives.
Healthy Beverage Hot Spots: Identifying & Utilizing the Institutional Access Points
This fact sheet identifies the key points of access to drinks within a healthcare facility.
Healthy Beverage Policies, Healthy Bottom Lines
This fact sheet discusses some of the common misperceptions about the potential financial impact of healthy beverage policies and initiatives.
Healthy Beverage Policies: Key Definitions & Sample Standards
This fact sheet provides guidance on developing written definitions and beverage standards for healthy beverage policies and initiatives.
Sickly Sweet: Why Focus on Sugary Drinks?
This fact sheet explains how sugary drinks contribute to chronic disease and health disparities.
Thirsty for Health - Tap Water and Healthcare
This fact sheet explains why promoting drinking water from the tap makes public health and economic sense.