What We Fund

NYSHealth is committed to supporting a range of projects that improve health at a regional or statewide level, particularly for vulnerable New Yorkers.

Priority Areas

NYSHealth concentrates most of our activities and grantmaking in two strategic priority areas. In each area, we have developed a set of specific goals and focused strategies to advance our efforts. To have an impact in these areas, we make grants, convene key stakeholders, and commission and disseminate policy analyses that inform health care policy and practice throughout New York State

Building Healthy Communities

Where we live affects our health in multiple and complex ways. NYSHealth seeks to improve neighborhood health by expanding access to and demand for nutritious foods and expanding access to safe places where residents can be more physically active.

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Empowering Health Care Consumers

New Yorkers find the health care system incredibly complex to understand and navigate. To ensure that consumers have the tools, resources, and support they need to be empowered and make informed decisions about their health care, the Foundation is focused on two strategies: (1) promoting information transparency and (2) engaging patients as partners in health care decision-making.

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Other Focus Areas

NYSHealth maintains a special commitment to two areas of focus outside of our current programmatic priority areas (building healthy communities and empowering health care consumers). Learn more about our Special Projects Fund and our efforts to meet the needs of returning veterans and their families.

Special Projects Fund

Grants through our Special Projects Fund allow us to support projects that address an important health care or public health issue in the State, but are outside of our targeted priority areas. Eligible projects are coordinated interventions that take place over a specified period of time to achieve quantifiable results.

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Veterans’ Health

The NYSHealth Initiative for Returning Veterans and Their Families seeks to underscore that the health care, mental health, and social services issues returning veterans and their families face are not solely military issues, but public and community health issues that should be addressed by local and national government agencies, community-based organizations, and health funders.

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Past Priority Areas

NYSHealth is committed to supporting a range of projects that improve health at a regional or statewide level, particularly for vulnerable New Yorkers. As the health needs and opportunities in New York change over time, our work also evolves to ensure we can have as much impact as possible. We often build upon our previous investments and use them to inform our current priority areas and grantmaking strategies. You can learn more about our earlier work to improve the health of New Yorkers from across the State.

Advancing Primary Care

Given the growing demand for primary care, the need to control health care costs, and the opportunities to develop new models of care as New York implemented health reform, the Foundation has supported efforts to advance primary care.

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Expanding Health Care Coverage

Many New Yorkers were projected to become newly insured once federal health reform provisions were fully phased in. To advance the implementation of health reform, NYSHealth supported a range of efforts to reach and educate consumers about their insurance options and how to enroll in and use their coverage.

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Improving Diabetes Prevention and Management

To reverse the diabetes epidemic in New York State, the Foundation supported efforts to improve the way primary care providers manage the care of people with diabetes and the spread of effective community-based prevention programs that reach people where they live, work, and worship.

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Integrating Mental Health and Substance Use Services

NYSHealth committed $10 million over five years to improve the integration of care for people who cope with mental health and substance use conditions at the same time. This work culminated at the end of 2012, but the Foundation continues to learn from this key investment.

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