Creating Healthier Communities (CHC) has launched a new calculator that lets businesses and community leaders estimate how poor health affects their own workforces and communities. The nonprofit noted that poor community health costs the United States an estimated $1.4 trillion each year, with businesses bearing the bulk of the losses.
Turning a national cost into a local figure
CHC’s Community Health Impact Investment Calculator is designed to move the conversation from national health statistics to local conditions.
The tool uses local health data to identify challenges affecting communities and estimate their economic impact. Businesses can enter the ZIP codes where their employees live to examine how workforce health conditions may affect healthcare costs, absenteeism, and productivity.
CHC estimates that businesses absorb more than $575 billion annually from health-related costs, including higher healthcare spending, absenteeism, and lost productivity.
The calculator also allows users to model potential investments in community health across different time periods. CHC based its investment estimates on evidence from 52 peer-reviewed studies, which it says found returns ranging from about 4:1 for local programs to a median of 14:1 and as high as 27:1 at scale.
CHC said national averages can hide significant differences between communities located only a few miles apart.
In New York City, the organization points to a 10.8-year difference in average life expectancy between Mott Haven in the Bronx and the Upper East Side. Residents of Mott Haven have an average life expectancy of 74.9 years, compared with 85.7 years on the Upper East Side, according to the data cited by CHC.
The organization also points to differences in access to mental health providers. The Bronx has one mental health provider for every 359 residents, compared with one for every 301 residents nationally, according to CHC.
The calculator draws its figures from public federal and peer-reviewed sources and identifies the source and year attached to each data point.
Creating Healthier Communities wants leaders to measure the cost of inaction
Jean C. Accius, president and CEO of Creating Healthier Communities, said the tool is intended to help leaders understand health challenges within the communities where they operate.
“Poor community health costs this country $1.4 trillion a year, and every year we wait, we pay that bill again,” Accius said.
CHC launched the calculator alongside an expanded edition of Built to Thrive: A Blueprint for Healthier Communities, Stronger Workforces, and Economic Vitality. The report examines the economic case for investing in conditions that influence community health.
The organization also released seven new perspectives from leaders across business, philanthropy, healthcare, academia, and social impact as part of the expanded report.
CHC launched its Leadership Council for Healthier Communities in September 2025. The initiative brings together senior leaders from those sectors to examine how investments in community health can affect local economies and workforces.
The organization has set a goal of cutting the life-expectancy gap between the healthiest and least healthy communities in the United States by half within a decade.