2011 Annual Report: Social Responsibility

Empowering good health means making connections that go well beyond providing access to local doctors and hospitals. At Aetna, we embrace our responsibility to use our influence nationally and internationally to make connections that can improve the health of whole communities and create a more sustainable world. We use our resources daily to help build healthier communities by funding solutions to the health care issues they face, and by employing effective initiatives to reduce our carbon footprint. This mindset can be found at work throughout all layers of our organization.

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Philanthropy
Aetna and the Aetna Foundation, combined, awarded $19.2 million in 2011 to nonprofit organizations working to improve people’s health and increase their access to quality health care. We focused on reversing the obesity epidemic in adults and children, promoting racial and ethnic health equity, and advancing integrated health care and care coordination.

In 2011, Aetna employees, retirees, and directors donated an additional $5.5 million through the company’s matching gift program, and they volunteered nearly 340,000 hours.

Much of our 2011 charitable giving supported programs and research that aim to help low-income and underserved populations who are at risk of poor health outcomes, often with limited access to quality health care opportunities. Awards included efforts to study food assistance programs that help low-income families purchase fresh fruits and vegetables; community-based programs that help at-risk people be physically active and access a healthful diet; initiatives that offer prenatal care to women at high risk of premature birth; scholars programs that seek to diversify the next generation of health care professionals, and promising practices that explore ways to enhance primary care by putting the patient’s needs first.



Sustainability
Our commitment to protecting our precious health care and environmental resources is long-standing, and we have reached noteworthy milestones in recent years such as reducing energy use at all of our largest Aetna-owned facilities. Other recent distinctions include:


Social responsibility remains ingrained in our culture. We will continue to look for new opportunities to have an impact on the world around us to help improve quality of life because it is the right thing to do.




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