One can think of the Healthy Communities Network as using information technology to create the next generation of the Healthy Cities movement, a human network methodology for community health development that was designed to help address the growing challenges cities face, such as poverty, sustainable development, education, transportation, the unmet needs of elderly and young people, etc.

A key element of the Healthy Cities concept is the use of a collaborative problem-solving process that allows a broad spectrum of community stakeholders to create a vision of well being and implement plans that turn vision into reality. This methodology has already been adopted by many organizations, most notably the World Health Organization, which has since spread the methodology to more than 3,000 cities worldwide.

The scope of the Healthy Cities movement has become very large, with over 7,000 participating cities spawning many dozens of community networking projects and conferences and symposiums conducted around this methodology. The founder of the Healthy Cities movement, Professor Len Duhl, is on the Healthy Communities Foundation board.