BACH’s work requires that we be a cross-sector alliance that brings all sorts of people and organizations together. So our members include dedicated neighborhood coalitions, hospitals, health centers, community development corporations, community-based organizations, policy advocacy groups, city and state health departments and residents from many of Boston’s neighborhoods. We have been taking a hard look at what and how we do our work and the value it adds to the health of Bostonians now and in the future. Our strategies fall into four “buckets” in our BACH Strategies for 2017 – 2019: Convening, Aligning, Engaging, and Sustaining for Impact: BACH Strategies for Making Boston a Healthy and Equitable City (click to view).

Some of the major goals we have are:

• Working with Boston’s hospitals and the Boston Public Health Commission to align cross-sector efforts to assess, implement, and measure health improvement activities through cooperative planning processes that will increase our service-rich city’s ability to address social determinants of health more effectively and with less redundancy.
• Launch programming that focuses on citywide issues and emphasizes cross-neighborhood and cross-sector approaches, such as Ambassadors program and Social Resilience Model Training.
• Develop a resident-driven healthy and age-friendly community policy and advocacy agenda with specific objectives in 2017 – 2019 that allow us to build partnerships with advocacy groups addressing a range of social determinants of health.
• Develop a sustainable funding plan so that BACH can continue to convene and engage diverse stakeholders which will guide us in being an authentic voice of Boston’s most vulnerable people and neighborhoods, including Healthy Community Champions’ (HCC) work of the Let’s Get Healthy, Boston! Initiative which engages neighborhood residents to advocate for policy, system, and environment changes.

This coming year brings with it a lot of uncertainty that could have serious negative consequences, including:

• Will large numbers of Bostonians lose their health insurance and access to health care?
• Will undocumented immigrant families continue to be threatened with children and parents being separated?
• Will funding for health promotion and community prevention be severely reduced?
• Will food insecurity continue to be a challenge for many Bostonians?

However, some things of which we can be certain:

• Our organization’s fundamental value in racial justice and equity is vital and necessary.
• There is strength and support when we work together to improve people’s lives.
• Residents of all ages are passionate and hopeful that they can change their neighborhoods for the better.
• BACH and our members and partners are committed to making our vision real: “a Boston that is vibrant, just, and equitable, where all people who live, work, play, pray, and learn here have optimal health and well-being and enjoy a supportive environment and a sense of safety and belonging – regardless of who they are, what neighborhood they live in, or where they come from.”

David Aronstein, BACH Director, daronstein@hria.org.