Birth Control Advocates of New York, dba New York Birth Control Access Project

Comprehensive reproductive health care includes readily available birth control options for individuals who want and need it. But more than 1.2 million New Yorkers live in areas without sufficient capacity to meet the needs of people eligible for publicly funded contraception. There are 4,800 pharmacies in New York, and almost 90% of New Yorkers live within 5 miles of one. In 2023, New York signed the Birth Control Access Act into law, enabling pharmacies to serve as one-stop shops for patients who need to renew oral contraceptives. However, a policy is only as good as its implementation, and uptake has been slow in New York, too; fewer than 100 pharmacists in New York have enrolled in the State-sponsored training required to participate. In 2025, NYHealth awarded the New York Birth Control Access Project (NYBCAP) a grant to offer technical assistance and support to pharmacists to dispense oral contraception and improve reproductive health access in high-need areas of the State. 

Under this grant, NYBCAP will launch the first phase of its “Pharmacy Access to Contraception: Technical Assistance (TA) Program”. It will partner with the Pharmacist Society of the State of New York and the American Pharmacists Association to reach pharmacies. It will also partner with pharmacy advisors and the New York State Department of Health to develop a toolkit and provide TA to pharmacists and independent pharmacies. It will conduct outreach to enroll pharmacists in the TA program; provide technical support; collect self-assessment surveys and use findings to evaluate the progress for potential replication.