Big data drives health care organization’s approach to corporate social responsibility

Anthem Foundation’s “Healthy Generations” is the “CSR Campaign of the Year” winner in PR Daily’s 2018 Corporate Social Responsibility Awards.

“Healthy Generations” is the label for the health care organization’s effort to corral a host of initiatives tackling some of the world’s most significant health challenges, including childhood obesity, diabetes in adults and low birth weight babies, among several others. 

Anthem Foundation’s CSR activities make use of big data to ensure its efforts are substantial, coordinated and beneficial to its communities. The volume of data the organization collects from claims and public health sources, coupled with proprietary social mapping technology, lets the Foundation pinpoint the health issues in each community in order to target solutions. 

For example, the Foundation can determine the prevalence of childhood obesity from elementary school to elementary school, and track abnormally high rates of diabetes or cardiac arrests at the ZIP code level. Using this data, the Foundation has partnered with organizations like the American Heart Association and Boys and Girls Clubs of America to address issues at a hyperlocal level. 

In addition to this laserlike ability to commit resources where they’ll do real good, the organization taps its workforce of nearly 50,000 employees to lead the “Healthy Generations” efforts. Employees channel their support through Associate Community Engagement Programs, including a matching gifts program, volunteer time off and the Anthem Cares Fund, which lets associates provide financial assistance to colleagues in need due to personal hardships or natural disasters. 

More than 6,000 associates have volunteered more than $1.3 million worth of time. The program has been a magnet for news coverage, generating more than 20,000 placements and more than 14 billion positive impressions. 

Congratulations to Anthem’s Lance Chrisman, Leah Birk, Maggie Bowden, Morgan Coleman, Katie Heenan, Tiffany Etter, Janice Hutchings, Paul Nielsen and Val Knight.