Building coalitions for better health: Advancing place-based change in communities
How place-based action can help improve health outcomes and create long-term value
Health outcomes are shaped by far more than access to care. The social, economic, and environmental factors that impact where people live, work, learn and age play significant roles. For leaders across industries, this creates both a challenge and an opportunity: improving health outcomes requires coordinated action in the places where people experience health.
Deloitte’s new report, Building effective coalitions for better non-communicable disease outcomes in communities, explores how place-based coalitions can help turn shared ambition into practical delivery. Using non-communicable diseases as a timely and urgent area of focus, the report examines how public systems, businesses, funders, community organizations and delivery partners can align capabilities, resources and accountability around a shared geography, population and set of outcomes.
From place-based principles to coalition-led delivery
Our 2024 report on place-based change set out four principles for creating healthier, more resilient communities: community ownership and empowerment, a rigorous analytical approach, purposeful and lasting partnerships, and sustainable, execution-oriented operating models. This new report builds on those principles and takes the next step: showing how leaders can operationalize them through coalitions designed to deliver.
In practice, that means moving from principle to action. Community ownership becomes a design requirement, not simply a value statement. Rigorous analysis becomes the discipline of selecting the right place, population and problem. Purposeful partnerships become clear roles, incentives and accountability across collaborators. Sustainable operating models become the delivery backbone, governance and financing pathway needed to move beyond pilot activity.
Non-communicable diseases—including cardiovascular disease, cancer, chronic respiratory disease and diabetes—provide a powerful area of focus for this approach. NCDs continue to place a growing health and economic burden on communities worldwide, yet many of the conditions that shape prevention, early detection and long-term care sit outside traditional health care systems. Food access, housing, transport, education, employment, air quality and local infrastructure can all influence whether people are able to live healthier lives.
Addressing these challenges requires more than isolated interventions. It calls for place-based action that is community-grounded, data-informed, operationally focused and designed for sustainability from the outset.
What the report explores
Drawing on a review of more than 150 place-based health programs, implementation insights and examples from Brazil and Nigeria, the report highlights both the promise and the challenge of coalition-led change. Many coalitions begin with strong intent, but struggle to sustain impact. Some have convening power but no operational backbone. Others bring together committed collaborators but lack clear ownership, aligned incentives or a route to long-term financing and system adoption.
Key Insights
A practical action guide for leaders
The report offers a five-step guide to help leaders build more effective place-based coalitions:
- Define the place, problem and rationale for action
- Build the coalition architecture
- Map capabilities and identify gaps
- Co-design the intervention and operating model
- Design for sustainability and scale
Together, these steps help translate the four principles of place-based change into an actionable approach for implementation. They can help organizations determine where coalition action is both needed and feasible, what capabilities already exist, which gaps need to be addressed, and how to move from pilot activity to durable local impact.
For executives across industries, the message is clear: healthier communities are more resilient economies. The next phase of impact will depend on coalitions that are designed not just to convene, but to deliver.
Download and explore the full report to learn how a coalition-design approach can help leaders advance place-based action, improve NCD outcomes and create long-term value for communities.
