In New York State, approximately 250 School-Based Health Centers (SBHCs) serve around 250,000 public school students. SBHCs cater to students with diverse backgrounds and communities, who are often underserved.
NYHealth grantee, the New York School-Based Health Foundation (NYSBHF) has witnessed how vulnerable SBHCs are and is committed to strengthening them. SBHCs are the beginning of student care and increasing their support will improve the positive health outcomes students have. SBHCs have sought ways to better understand students and recognize their needs, especially with the surge in behavioral health needs.
“We believe that school-based health centers have the potential to be enormously effective, in providing services to the underserved, affecting kids for a lifetime in every respect, affecting their chances of success. And we exist to strengthen them in any way we can,” said Ronda Kotelchuck, Chair of the NYSBHF Board.
In 2021, the NYSBHF piloted a Data Hub, a repository of demographic and clinical data from more than half of all SBHCs across the State. NYSBHF used NYHealth funding to conduct a deeper dive into the data to better understand diagnoses in relation to race, ethnicity, insurance status, and urban/rural location. A key aspect was asking sponsoring organizations what they could use the data for, leading to actionable plans. NYSBHF looks forward to using the data for individual SBHCs to improve and for the general public to understand the importance of SBHCs.
NYSBHF noted that across the United States, race and ethnicity data is often confusing, or uncollected. To address this issue for SBHCs, NYSBHF has had conversations with the New York City Department of Health’s Office of School Health about their enrollment forms. The revised 2024–2025 enrollment forms will be different and will improve race and ethnicity data because of the foundation’s work.
“The kind of work we’ve done is already trickling down to the students directly in terms of each individual organization working to improve their disparities and data collection,” explained Megan Spinella, Research and Strategic Communications Senior Manager.
These data reports continue to demonstrate the vital role that SBHCs play in the communities they serve. The New York School-Based Health Foundation remains optimistic about the future, as these findings pave the way for increased support, enhanced data collection for SBHCs, and the development of a more robust data hub.
Learn more about New York School-Based Health Foundation efforts here.