About Us

What We Do

The New York State Health Foundation (NYSHealth) is a private, statewide foundation that aims to improve New York’s health care system by expanding health insurance coverage, containing health care costs, increasing access to high-quality services, and addressing public and community health.

Priority Areas

NYSHealth concentrates its initiatives in three strategic priority areas:

Reducing the number of uninsured

NYSHealth has devoted $20 million over a five-year period to reduce the percentage of uninsured New Yorkers through public and private initiatives. The Foundation focuses on advancing implementation of Federal reform insurance coverage expansions; expanding access for newly insured New Yorkers and those who are left behind and remain uninsured; and leveraging cost containment and delivery system reform opportunities.

Improving diabetes prevention and management

NYSHealth has established a five-year Diabetes Campaign to reverse the diabetes epidemic by improving clinical care, mobilizing communities, and promoting policies that sustain improvements in diabetes care and prevention.

Integrating mental health and substance use services

NYSHealth has committed $10 million over five years to improve the integration of care for people who cope with mental health and substance use conditions at the same time, with a focus on reducing clinical, regulatory, and financial barriers.

Under this priority area, NYSHealth has committed an additional $2 million over the next two years to its Initiative for Returning Veterans and Their Families to address the reintegration needs of returning Iraq and Afghanistan veterans and their families.

Grantmaking

Our grantmaking focus is statewide and we strive for an appropriate geographic distribution of grants. We favor grant initiatives that can have statewide, long-term impact. Since many of the State’s health care problems have common roots with solutions applicable to both upstate and downstate, we also are interested in grants that have potential for replication. In a typical year, the Foundation makes an average of 70 grants totaling approximately $15 million in funding.

NYSHealth awards grants through targeted initiatives related to our three strategic priority areas and through a Special Projects Fund reserved for projects that address important health care or public health issues consistent with NYSHealth’s mission but outside its priority areas. Special Projects Fund awards replace what were previously known as special opportunities grants, and should be considered one-time, non-renewable funding opportunities.

For both categories of grants, NYSHealth issues requests for proposals and uses external review panels comprising a range of health experts to assess proposed projects.