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 2018, NYHealth awarded the Staten Island Partnership for Community Wellness (SIPCW) a grant to participate in this initiative as part of its efforts to build healthy communities.

Under this grant, SIPCW sent its executive director to the American Public Health Association Annual Meeting and Expo. The conference, “Creating the Healthiest Nation: Health Equity Now,” convened public health professionals from diverse disciplines to share knowledge regarding persistent and emerging health issues, with a focus on equitable approaches. Many of the conference’s topic areas helped inform SIPCW’s work to build healthy communities and promote health and wellness on Staten Island. Session topics included community health planning and policy development; food and nutrition; and environment. Throughout these sessions, leaders and innovators within these disciplines shared best practices around changing the built environment, increasing access to healthy foods, and designing policies to support children’s wellbeing. By attending this conference, SIPCW was able to network with thought leaders from across the nation working on similar health initiatives in their own communities.

View a complete list of conference participation grantees.