Staten Island Partnership for Community Wellness, Inc.

In a state as large as New York, a steady stream of smart, innovative work is coming from NYHealth grantees and non-grantees alike that is relevant to NYHealth’s priority areas of Building Healthy Communities and Empowering Health Care Consumers and its focus area on Veterans’ Health. These organizations should be elevating their work and informing key stakeholders at regional, statewide, and national conferences, meetings, and other convenings. Yet, because of a lack of resources, they are often unable to do so. To address this issue, NYHealth is awarding grants through its Sponsoring Conference Participation in Support of Healthy Communities, Consumer Empowerment, and Veterans’ Health Request for Proposals (RFP). Through this RFP, NYHealth is sponsoring low-resource organizations to attend and present at local, State, and national conferences related to these areas. In 2019, NYHealth awarded the Staten Island Partnership for Community Wellness (SIPCW) a grant to participate in this initiative as part of its efforts to build healthier communities.

Under this grant, SIPCW sent two staff members to the American Public Health Association’s (APHA) annual conference, “Creating the Healthiest Nation: For Science. For Action.” This conference convened public health professionals from diverse disciplines to share their knowledge regarding persistent and emerging health issues, with a key focus on equitable solutions. The SIPCW staff members attended sessions that highlighted research and strategies that help children and their families overcome food insecurity and barriers to healthier food and lifestyle choices. Attending the APHA conference equipped SIPCW staff with the most up-to-date research on healthy eating, active living, and other social determinants of health. SIPCW later applied these strategies when developing robust indicators and measures for its children’s wellness initiative.

View a complete list of conference participating grantees.