As frontline workers during COVID-19, nurses across New York State put their own lives at risk to care for New Yorkers. Now we are seeing the health risks, stress, and burnout caused by the pandemic resulting in 1 in 5 health-care workers across the country leaving their jobs.

Barriers to clinical care, including lack of access to health insurance, increasingly high medical costs, prevailing language barriers and more, prevent many New Yorkers from receiving the treatment required to live a healthy life.

Over 2 million New Yorkers struggle with food insecurity, increasing likelihood of not only physical health issues, such as diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, and obesity, but also mental health issues. In recognition of National Nutrition Month this March, the Foundation is highlighting six vital organizations increasing food access across New York State.

Communities across New York State often lack access to the basic social infrastructure that is essential for positive health outcomes—including housing, transportation, a living wage, social support systems, clinical care, food, and education. To improve health outcomes for vulnerable New Yorkers, one of the many disparities we must address is in health literacy.

The elevated level of food insecurity in New York City is striking. Since the start of the pandemic, the number of New York City residents struggling with food insecurity increased 36% overall and a sobering 46% among children, according to an analysis by Feeding America.

In the last two years, COVID-19’s devastating impact on nursing home residents led to a shift in how nursing homes, healthcare organizations, and municipalities approach long-term care for older New Yorkers. Even prior to the pandemic, nearly 90% of homeowners approaching retirement wanted to stay in their homes as they aged. 

Across New York State, nearly 30,000 currently incarcerated individuals lack the critical opportunity to pursue higher education, necessary for economic and professional growth. This shortfall contributes to a cycle of mass incarceration as recidivism rates in New York reach 40%, further limiting individual and regional economic growth and overall well-being.

Our grantee, Bedford Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation (Restoration), recently released a study highlighting the pandemic’s impact on Central Brooklyn’s local food systems.

Despite the progress public health officials have made in protecting children from lead poisoning and the irreversible neurological damage it can cause, Central New York currently faces an emerging public health crisis. 

From closing hospitals to staff shortages to longer travel distances for emergency care, New Yorkers living in rural regions face significant challenges accessing healthcare. Those living in these “healthcare deserts” have the greatest need for increased telehealth services — especially now.

A Center for Migration Studies report, funded by our Foundation, maps the determinants of immigrant health in the boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens. In doing so, it seeks to enable healthcare providers, government agencies, and non-profit immigrant-serving entities – including faith-based entities – to identify gaps in their services to immigrant populations, and to help meet the need – healthcare and other – of diverse immigrant communities at heightened risk of adverse health outcomes.

Good oral health is the gateway to good overall health. Growing research shows that poor oral health, especially gum disease, leads to chronic diseases, including diabetes, heart disease, and stroke. These diseases can in turn reduce the body’s resistance to infection. Yet lack of access to dental care persists within disadvantaged and underserved populations across New York.

Across the state, the pandemic has revealed how inequitably our communities are prepared to cope with an emergency of this magnitude. The Department of Health in New York City released data reflecting an alarming nationwide trend: vulnerable groups such as low-income individuals, senior citizens, and people of color are suffering from COVID-19 at disproportionate rates.

In July, the Buffalo News reported on an innovative new program enabled by a grant from our Foundation to Endeavor Health Services. The Buffalo Police Department began embedding a handful of licensed clinical social workers to work alongside police officers and respond to mental health and substance abuse calls. Click on “Read More” to see a December update from Endeavor.