Collaborative aims to demonstrate that when companies use an evidence-based structured methodology to assess and improve their cultures of health, they can generate remarkable improvements in workforce and community health and increase the value derived from their investment in health benefits.

Philadelphia, PA: On April 12, 2022, the Greater Philadelphia Business Coalition on Health (GPBCH), HealthNEXT, and the CDC Foundation, announced The Greater Philadelphia Employer Culture of Health Collaborative, a collaborative aimed at enhancing the health and well-being of employees and their families as well as controlling health care costs.

With support from the CDC Foundation and leveraging HealthNEXT’s Culture of Health program, the collaborative brings GPBCH employer members together to demonstrate that a systematic assessment, strategic planning, and implementation of best practices results in enduring cultures of health and wellness. In addition, each participating employer will be guided through the process by highly experienced corporate health leaders.

Seven GPBCH employer member organizations are participating in the Culture of Health Collaborative, including Ballard Spahr, the City of Philadelphia, Five Below, Wawa, Woods Services, and the YMCA of Delaware. This collaboration comes at a time when healthcare spending grew 9.7% in 2020, and about 45% of the U.S. population suffers from at least one chronic condition.

According to Neil Goldfarb, President and CEO of GPBCH, “one of the key reasons employers have joined our Coalition is to demonstrate their commitment to our region and identify strategies they can implement through benefits offerings and wellness programming to advance workforce and community health. We’re excited that the CDC Foundation has chosen to invest in these efforts and hope to be able to demonstrate the effectiveness of this approach so that other employers here and elsewhere can benefit from our experiences.”

Dr. Ray Fabius, MD, HealthNEXT’s President and Chief Medical Officer and consulting medical director for GPBCH, states, “This program brings several Delaware Valley enterprises together to build benchmark organizational cultures of health using a proven methodology and best practice sharing. We are hopeful that this effort, supported by a CDC Foundation grant, will not only provide value to the participating companies but to the Philadelphia region as a whole.”

The HealthNEXT Culture of Health program is a peer-reviewed published methodology that reduces the healthcare cost trend, improves workforce health and well-being, and increases enterprise performance for companies large and small. As part of the program, participants undergo HealthNEXT’s validated maturity model assessment to identify strengths and opportunities, resulting in a customized multi-year strategy to build a sustainable culture of health. Additionally, designated “NEXTperts”- population health experts who are former Fortune 500 Chief Medical Officers - guide the implementation. The collaborative will orchestrate sharing best practices among employer participants through GPBCH virtual Employer Learning Collaborative sessions.

About Greater Philadelphia Business Coalition on Health: GPBCH is the employer coalition for southeastern Pennsylvania, the entire state of Delaware, and southern New Jersey. The Coalition’s mission is to help employers improve the health of the workforce and the value of the benefits spend. The Coalition currently has 50 employer member organizations, representing more than 1.5 million covered lives nationally. The majority of GPBCH’s members are self-funded employers, with a mix of public and private employers. GPBCH also has 49 affiliate member organizations – health plans, benefits consultants, pharmaceutical manufacturers, service vendors, and other organizations with an interest in employers. Additional information is available at www.gpbch.org.

About CDC Foundation: The CDC Foundation helps the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) save and improve lives by unleashing the power of collaboration between CDC, philanthropies, corporations, organizations, and individuals to protect the health, safety, and security of America and the world. The CDC Foundation is the go-to nonprofit authorized by Congress to mobilize philanthropic partners and private-sector resources to support CDC’s critical health protection mission. Since 1995, the CDC Foundation has raised over $1.2 billion and launched more than 1,200 programs impacting a variety of health threats from chronic disease conditions, including cardiovascular disease and cancer, to infectious diseases like rotavirus and HIV, to emergency responses, including COVID-19 and Ebola. The CDC Foundation managed hundreds of programs in the United States and in more than 140 countries last year. Follow the CDC Foundation on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and TikTok.

About HealthNEXT: A leading developer of workforce population health strategies, HealthNEXT provides a powerful combination for organizations large and small: the only published, peer-reviewed employee health and well-being assessment in the market + access to world-class Chief Medical Officers on-demand, in one data-driven platform. Led by a team of “NEXTperts” with extensive clinical and organizational leadership experience, the HealthNEXT solution builds a culture of health and well-being that reduces healthcare cost trends, enhances productivity, and maintains a competitive advantage. Learn more at healthnext.com.

This project is supported by a sub-award from the CDC Foundation and is part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) financial assistance award totaling $300,000.00 with 100 percent funded by CDC/HHS. The contents are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the official views of, nor an endorsement, by CDC/HHS, or the U.S. Government.