Healthy Choices

SMB Health Initiative Promotes Healthy Choices

As part of our ongoing effort to assist our members in managing workforce issues, the California Black Chamber of Commerce has conducted numerous workshops on maintaining a healthy workforce, with a particular emphasis toward African American health care issues. 

In an effort to continue our work in this area and in order to reach a broader number of our members across the state, the California Black Chamber of Commerce Foundation  “Healthy Choices Initiative.  The goal of this initiative is two-fold.  One of the primary objectives of the Initiative is to educate our members and small business owners on health care issues and policies and provide access to healthy food and beverages.  The educational component of the initiative examines the following areas:

• ­ Disease states that are prevalent among communities of color;

• ­ How this disease states impact productivity and costs to business owners;

• ­ Healthy lifestyle changes aimed at decreasing the incidence of sick days, absences, and decreased productivity;

• ­ The impact of health disparities in communities of color on workforce productivity;

• ­ What business owners can do to help close the health disparity gap;

• ­ Options and alternatives for small business owners to ensure that its employee's healthcare needs are met;

• ­ Advocating on behalf of a healthy workforce to state and local officials.

Another objective of the Healthy African American Workforce Initiative is to train and develop individuals within each chapter to advocate in support of health policy reform aimed at maintaining a healthy African American Workforce.  As part of this component of the initiative, we conduct workshops with the local Chapter Presidents and the health policy committee members on issues such as: Open access to prescription drug therapy, Health Disparities in the African American Community, Cultural Competency, The negative effect of a “one-size fits all” approach to healthcare in communities of color, and Health Insurance Reform. 

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