One of FPHNYC’s core focuses and areas of expertise is working with foundation partners to secure private funding for programs and initiatives that benefit New Yorkers through the services of the Health Department. Often, these grants help leverage new and additional public investment in vital public health services. Some programs benefitting from more than $ 5 million in grants awarded to FPHNYC in the last few months include:

Building Our Largest Dementia Infrastructure (BOLD)
Initially launched with funding from the CDC, the NYC BOLD Program utilizes a public health approach to address Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias. Actions include education about early detection and diagnosis, promoting brain health through healthy habits, and increasing access to resources. The John A. Hartford Foundation awarded funding to enhance community health worker outreach and engagement as part of the program.

“We are proud to support the NYC BOLD Program’s community-centered work to advance health equity by promoting brain health and age-friendly care for older adults and their families living with dementia.”
Terry Fulmer, PhD, RN, FAAN, President, The John A. Hartford Foundation

Early Intervention
Early Intervention (EI) is a free program that assists and empowers families with young children who have developmental disabilities. Expanding access to EI and enhancing follow-up and retention, especially for children living in neighborhoods with high poverty rates, is a priority for the Health Department. A grant from Robin Hood will help integrate developmental screenings in more childcare programs in NYC and funding from Tiger Foundation is expanding the use of electronic health records to monitor children’s progress and address any emerging barriers.

Medicaid Expansion for Older New Yorkers
Undocumented New Yorkers aged 65 and older are eligible to enroll in the state’s expanded Medicaid-managed care insurance plan, but many are not aware of the fact. The Health Department is partnering with community-based organizations to coordinate targeted public messaging and increase knowledge of this opportunity to enroll in Medicaid, thanks in large part to funding from The Altman Foundation and The Fan Fox and Leslie R. Samuels Foundation.

Coalition to End Racism in Clinical Algorithms (CERCA)
Clinical algorithms are tools used by clinicians to guide their decision-making. However, these algorithms often incorporate “race adjustment” to account for biological factors, leading to inequitable treatment and care for patients of color. Since 2021, CERCA has been successful in working to educate clinicians about harmful race-based clinical algorithms and end their use. The SCAN Foundation is funding the development of a toolkit that will be used to disseminate the learnings and strategies of CERCA so that it can be replicated nationally by other partners.

“Clinical algorithms using race adjustment often negatively impact treatment and care for people of color, including older adults of color. CERCA is leading the way in New York City, advocating for health systems to stop the inclusion of race adjustment in their clinical algorithms,” said The SCAN Foundation’s Vice President of Innovation and Investment, Anika Heavener. “The SCAN Foundation funded a grant that will take the lessons learned from CERCA’s cutting-edge efforts in New York and create a toolkit to support more health systems, community clinics, and safety-net providers to end the use of race adjustments in their clinical algorithms.”

Reproductive Health Project
Many school-based health centers (SBHCs) in NYC offer comprehensive sexual and reproductive health care for adolescents, including providing the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine series to prevent HPV-related cancers. The JPB Foundation has supported these SBHCs with a series of multi-year grants, and the Foundation recently provided a final grant for high-quality primary and preventive health services in NYC public schools.

Learn more about how you can join with FPHNYC and the Health Department to advance the shared goal of improving the health and well-being of New Yorkers. Contact development@fphnyc.org

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After reviewing over 370 submissions, TD Bank selected FPHNYC as one of 10 recipients awarded grants to provide solutions with the potential to make a lasting impact on communities at risk of experiencing healthcare inequalities. FPHNYC will collaborate with the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene to replicate the successful Quickie Lab currently at Chelsea Express in Manhattan at the Fort Greene Sexual Health Clinic (SHC) in Brooklyn.

Expanding an innovative model

The Quickie Lab is an innovative model to address sexually transmitted infections (STIs) by making it faster and easier for people to get tested and treated. SHCs provide low- to no-cost walk-in sexual health services regardless of immigration status or insurance coverage.

The Quickie Lab at the Chelsea Express Clinic provides rapid chlamydia and gonorrhea testing to asymptomatic patients without requiring them to see a clinical provider. Results are available in hours instead of days, enabling patients to receive treatment as soon as possible, sometimes on the same day. Rapid diagnosis and treatment of asymptomatic infections helps reduce disease transmission and prevent long-term health consequences.

Ending the Epidemic

This approach ties into the City’s Ending the HIV Epidemic strategy. Having an STI can increase your risk of getting or transmitting HIV. Timely STI testing and diagnosis not only enables treatment, but also links New Yorkers to preventive services such as pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP). 

After the successful launch of the first Quickie Lab at Chelsea Express, Fort Greene was identified as the next site based on the high testing volume, burden of disease, and populations served.

On the heels of the success of the Quickie Lab at Chelsea Express, the Quickie Lab at Fort Greene will give Brooklynites a great reason to look after their sexual health in their own borough. Creating geographical access to this service is a major milestone in our ongoing quest to achieve sexual health equity across New York City.

Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, Deputy Commissioner for the NYC Health Department’s Division of Disease Control

An Exciting New Partnership

On December 11^th, the TD Bank team came to the Fort Greene SHC to view the site of the future Quickie Lab where Commissioner of Health Dr. Oxiris Barbot, Andy Bregenzer, Regional President Metro New York at TD Bank, Sara Gardner, FPHNYC’s Executive Director, and Dr. Daskalakis spoke about how this partnership will help Brooklynites lead safe and healthy lives.

The Fund for Public Health in New York City is proud to partner with TD Bank and the Health Department to expand the Quickie Lab model to Fort Greene, Brooklyn.

Sara Gardner, Executive Director, FPHNYC

We are thrilled to partner with TD Bank and the Health Department on this project and look forward to seeing the success of this model. Learn more about our work fighting epidemics like STIs here.

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Recognizing inequities in maternal health

Structural racism and gender oppression are root causes of inequities in maternal outcomes. Research shows that experiences of racism (and often, relatedly, not being believed or having pain taken seriously), takes a toll on bodies, especially during pregnancy and birth. The chronic stress of racism increases the risk of diseases like high blood pressure and diabetes, which also increase the risk of maternal morbidity and mortality.

After FPHNYC received a grant from Merck for Mothers in 2013, NYC became the first local jurisdiction in the United States to design a citywide Severe Maternal Morbidity (SMM) surveillance system. Analysis of these data indicated that occurrences of SMM had increased by 28% from 2008 to 2012, and that about 2,500 women experienced SMM each year. Furthermore, the analysis showed that Black women were three times more likely than White non-Latina women to have a near-death experience related to pregnancy. 

A new path forward

In response to these alarming findings, in July 2018 New York City announced an investment of $12.8 million over three years to support a comprehensive plan to reduce maternal deaths and life-threatening childbirth complications among women of color. This plan, known as the Maternity Hospital Quality Improvement Network (the Network) is led by the leadership of the Bureau of Maternal, Infant, and Reproductive Health at the Health Department. Additionally, it builds upon projects made possible by the Merck for Mothers grants as well as work implemented by the Sexual and Reproductive Justice Community Engagement Group.  

The Network will 1) develop hospital quality improvement committees to review SMM cases, 2) conduct trauma-informed  trainings to support systems and address implicit bias, 3) foster best health care practices through ongoing medical simulation trainings, 4) support hospital driven quality improvement projects, 5) support the implementation of the NYC Standards for Respectful Care at Birth, and 6) support resources and technical assistance for community engagement.

One part of the solution

To address these disparities and ensure respectful care for pregnant and parenting mothers in New York City, The Fund for Public Health in FPHNYC, in collaboration with the New York City Health Department, was recently awarded a $300,000 grant from The New York Community Trust to support the Maternity Hospital Quality Improvement Network over two years. The New York Community Trust grant allows the Health Department to supplement the above initiatives with trainings to support both trauma- and resilience-informed care and address implicit biases that can lead to poorer health outcomes for people of color. 

Living with the daily experience of racism takes a physical toll on the body that increases the risk of hypertension, diabetes, toxic stress, and trauma, which are all contributing factors to SMM. The Health Department has adopted a comprehensive approach to address racial and ethnic inequities in maternal mortality and SMM.

FPHNYC and the Health Department have a history of implementing successful programs with the support of New York Community Trust such as Pharmacy to Farms which provides $30 in coupons for fresh produce to SNAP participants with high blood pressure.

The Maternity Hospital Quality Improvement Network award will allow the Health Department to enhance the Maternal Hospital Quality improvement Network.

For more information about this project and others to protect the rights of pregnant and parenting people in NYC, please contact us.

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DOHMH has successfully implemented a number of interventions and programs to address the overdose epidemic; however, sustained high rates of overdose death in NYC warrant expansion of current initiatives and implementation of new strategies.

The Fund for Public Health in NYC (FPHNYC), in collaboration with the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (NYCDOHMH), was recently awarded the Overdose Data to Action (ODTA) $2.4 million grant from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The ODTA program uses a multi-faceted approach to combat the opioid crisis, which includes:

• Surveying people who use opioids.
• Educating clinicians around prescription drug monitoring programs.
• Facilitating an ongoing public health-public safety partnership.
• Enhancing community-level interventions in targeted neighborhoods.
• Developing anti-stigma trainings and toolkits for clinicians.

DOHMH’s data-driven approach to the opioid epidemic has served as a model for jurisdictions across the US. ODTA funding will enable DOHMH to target, enhance, and evaluate high quality surveillance and prevention strategies to decrease the rate of opioid misuse and opioid use disorder, increase the provision of evidence-based treatment for opioid use disorder, decrease the rate of emergency department (ED) visits due to misuse, or opioid use disorder, and decrease the rate of drug overdose deaths, including deaths involving prescription and illicit opioids.

“With this new grant, we’re joining our partners at the NYC Health Department to curb the opioid epidemic that has impacted the lives of so many New Yorkers. We know by scaling evidence-based programs there is potential for people who abuse opioids to reclaim their lives.”

Sara Gardner, FPHNYC Executive Director

FPHNYC and the Health Department have a history of implementing successful programs through CDC grant funding. DOHMH has been at the forefront of drug surveillance and research across the country for the past 15 years and has established a comprehensive public health surveillance system with broad and deep relevant expertise to monitor, track, and respond to drug-related harms in NYC.

This award allows DOHMH to enhance its multi-pronged and comprehensive initiatives and efforts to monitor, track, and respond to drug-related harms in NYC.

This publication was supported by Grant or Cooperative Agreement number NU17CE924978-01-00, funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Its contents are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention or the Department of Health and Human Services.

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