America Pays $1.4 Trillion a Year for Poor Community Health. A New Tool Shows Leaders What Inaction Is Costing Them, Right Where They Live.

The new Community Health Impact Investment Calculator turns a national crisis into a local call to action. It shows businesses and community leaders what poor health is costing them today and what investing in their own communities could return.

ALEXANDRIA, Va., Oct. 1, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Poor community health carries an estimated $1.4 trillion annual economic burden in the United States. That is roughly $3.8 billion every day. Businesses alone absorb more than $575 billion each year through higher health care costs, absenteeism, lost productivity and other health-related costs. And they are costs leaders have the power to reduce.

Today, Creating Healthier Communities launched the Community Health Impact Investment Calculator. The tool gives leaders a clear view of what poor health is costing their business, their workforce and their community, and what they stand to gain by acting. In about two minutes, users can see the health challenges closest to them, measure their economic impact, and model the return on investing to address them.

The Power of Proximity
National averages hide the problem, and they hide the solution too. The gaps that cost America most are local, and the leaders best positioned to close them are the ones closest to them: the employer who knows where her workforce lives, the mayor who knows which neighborhoods are being left behind, and the health system and philanthropy rooted in the same ZIP codes as the people they serve.

For community leaders, the calculator surfaces health gaps and the conditions contributing to them at the local level. For businesses, it uses the ZIP codes where employees live to estimate what poor workforce health may already be costing the company. Users can then model potential investments over different time horizons, drawing on evidence from 52 peer-reviewed studies showing returns ranging from approximately 4:1 for local programs to a median 14:1 and as high as 27:1 at scale.

"Poor community health costs this country $1.4 trillion a year, and every year we wait, we pay that bill again," said Jean C. Accius, PhD, President and CEO, Creating Healthier Communities. "But no CEO or mayor manages a $1.4 trillion problem. They manage the problem in front of them, in their workforce, their neighborhoods, their ZIP codes. That proximity is their greatest power. We built this tool so leaders can see the gap in their own community, understand what it is costing them, and see the return from closing it."

Just Miles Apart, Worlds Apart 
The gap the calculator reveals is often hidden inside a city's average. In New York City, 10.8 years of life expectancy separate the Mott Haven section of the Bronx, where residents live to 74.9 on average, from the Upper East Side, where they live to 85.7. The Bronx has one mental health provider for every 359 residents, compared with one for every 301 nationally. In Montgomery County, Ohio, the spread across ZIP codes is 13.7 years. These gaps are not inevitable. They are the product of conditions that leaders can change. Every figure in the tool is drawn from public federal or peer-reviewed sources and labeled with its source and year, so leaders can act with confidence.

The calculator builds on Built to Thrive: A Blueprint for Healthier Communities, Stronger Workforces, and Economic Vitality, released by CHC's Leadership Council for Healthier Communities in June. The report made the economic case for investing upstream in the conditions that shape health, documenting both the enormous cost of poor community health and the measurable return when leaders invest differently.

Today, CHC is also releasing an expanded edition of Built to Thrive, adding seven new perspectives from leaders across sectors on what it will take to move from evidence to action.

The release coincides with the first anniversary of CHC's Leadership Council for Healthier Communities, which launched on September 30, 2025 to bring senior leaders across business, health care, philanthropy, academia and social impact together around a shared challenge: creating healthier communities while strengthening workforces and local economies. In its first year, that work has moved from making the case to measuring the gap to mobilizing action.

Earlier this year, CHC set a national Moonshot: cut the life-expectancy gap between the healthiest and least healthy communities in half within a decade. The Community Health Impact Investment Calculator gives leaders a way to begin measuring that challenge where they live, work and invest, and to understand the potential value of changing it.

The calculator is available now at calculator.chcimpact.org. The expanded Built to Thrive report is available at chcimpact.org/lchc/.

About CHC: Creating Healthier Communities
For nearly 70 years, Creating Healthier Communities has connected nonprofits, businesses, and communities to drive scalable impact that improves lives and strengthens communities. With a network of 5,000+ partners nationwide, CHC addresses the barriers to health so every person, no matter their ZIP code, can live their healthiest life. Join us at chcimpact.org or follow us on social media @chcimpact.

About the Leadership Council for Healthier Communities
The Leadership Council for Healthier Communities (LCHC) is a cross-sector initiative of CHC: Creating Healthier Communities — a structured peer community for senior executives from business, philanthropy, health care, academia, and social impact organizations who are ready to move from intention to impact.

SOURCE Creating Healthier Communities