In many communities across the United States, poverty is a depressingly reliable indicator of health outcomes and health system performance. But there are some fascinating exceptions to this general rule, as The Commonwealth Fund’s Scorecard on Local Health System Performance revealed.
In a new, photo-rich interactive feature, Sarah Klein and Douglas McCarthy take a closer look at three of these communities: Southern Arizona, a region that encompasses Tucson; West Central Michigan, which centers around Grand Rapids; and Western New York, including Buffalo and Niagara Falls.
Explore our online feature—which draws on interviews with local business leaders, insurance company executives, health care providers, and others—to learn the origins of these regions’ successes in shaping a vision and building community collaborations to improve health and health care.