The Problem, Our Solution and Our Approach
Listen to our library of presentations for an in-depth discussion on these issues.
The Problem: Our Lifestyle is killing us and making us broke
- Health status and lifespan in the United States are among the lowest of all the developed nations of the world, despite spending twice as much per capita than almost every other nation.
- Colorado spends 29% of its state budget on healthcare; employer costs continue to increase two to three times faster than inflation; and healthcare is virtually unaffordable for people without employer coverage. The Congressional Budget Office projects that federal spending on medical care will consume 100% of all federal tax revenue before the end of the century.
- Chronic diseases, including cancer, heart disease, diabetes, respiratory diseases account for about 75% of all costs, and as much as 90% of state and federal medical costs.
- Lifestyle behaviors, primarily tobacco use, physical inactivity and poor nutrition, are the primary cause of approximately 80% of all chronic disease.
Listen to our short (6 minute) discussion of The Problem on our Resources page.
Our Proposed Solution: Harness the power of Lifestyle as medicine
- Thousands of studies have demonstrated that comprehensive evidence-based lifestyle medicine programs can and have reversed heart disease and diabetes and prevented cancer in clinical, workplace and community settings as well as reduced medical costs with savings as great as $3 for every $1 invested among the best programs.
- Unfortunately, successful efforts are the exception; most efforts have little impact on health or cost because they are too superficial and do not use best practice strategies. Equally important, most people (estimated at 96%) do not have access to comprehensive efforts because of where they live, work, or go to school. The biggest limitation of reaching the full population is the lack of financial, social and intellectual capital, and policy authority necessary to have an impact. The resources available from foundations and health departments, the most common current funders, are insufficient.
- We anticipate minimal if any new financial investments will be required from state or local governments. In addition to improving health, quality of life and reducing medical costs, new annual economic growth may be as high as $1 billion in Colorado — creating more than 10,000 jobs, resulting in tens of millions in new state income tax revenue.
Listen to our short (9 minute) discussion of our Proposed Solution on our Resources page.
Our Approach: Scalable, fiscally sustainable ecosystems for healthy lifestyles
Our proposed approach has several distinct features:
- Moving beyond the intermittent “programs” that reach too few people, to creating ecosystems that engage all people where they live, work, learn, heal, pray or play, regardless of their economic status or geographic location.
- Providing a therapeutic dose of evidence-based approaches that change people’s knowledge, motivation, skills and behavior — and creating opportunities in their social, economic and physical environments to make it possible to practice healthy lifestyles.
- Aspiring to be fiscally sustainable, requiring no government funding but only seed funding from foundations, and repaying that seed funding over time.
- Reaching a scale large enough to help solve state and national level problems.
- Creating a mobilizing organization (MOG) that identifies and harnesses the financial, social, intellectual capital and the policy authority from individuals and organizations that have these resources and will better achieve their existing goals by applying them to this effort.
Listen to our short (16 minute) discussion of Our Approach on our Resources page.
Lifestyle as Medicine.
It works, but few people have access to appropriate programs, services and resources.
When was the last time you had the opportunity to be part of something truly groundbreaking and meaningful to the greater good? This is that opportunity and it’s an honor to play a role.”
Brad Cooper, MSPT, MBA, ATC, CWC
Chief Executive Officer, US Corporate Wellness, Inc.
Co-founder, The Catalyst Coaching Institute
Chief Executive Officer, US Corporate Wellness, Inc.
Co-founder, The Catalyst Coaching Institute