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Grantee: Columbia University Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology Division of                Family Planning and Preventive Services
Project Title: Txt Now 2 Decrease Pregnancies L8r

Project Description:  The project team will study the use of cell phone text messaging technology in a novel way: they will provide daily oral contraceptive dosing reminders and educational messages to teens. Many teens elect to use oral contraceptives for birth control but they often forget their daily doses. Cell phones are a widespread technology that is increasingly being used as a primary means of communication. Teen cell phone users in particular frequently use text messaging. The primary study endpoint is oral contraceptive continuation at six months. The project team will also assess pill taking behaviors and changes in health knowledge. They aim to use the information obtained to develop specific, practice-based interventions to improve reproductive health programs and policies. They will disseminate this information and collaborate with other researchers and clinicians to decrease the numbers of unintended teen pregnancies nationwide.
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Grantee: Long Island College Hospital Asthma Center
Project Title: Asthma Early Intervention For You (AEI For YOU)

Project Description:  The grant will fund the evaluation of a comprehensive asthma intervention program conducted in day care and Head Start centers in the Bushwick and Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhoods of Brooklyn. The overall goals of the project are to decrease hospitalization, emergency department visits, school absenteeism and mortality related to childhood asthma. The project’s contribution to community health focuses on increased tracking and information about the connection between absenteeism and ER visits for children with asthma at different severity levels. This project will track the children at a very early age and provide comprehensive services and education to the kids, parents and day care staff. Probability is high that this intervention could be spread to other urban day care centers.
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Grantee: Health People
Project Title: The Bronx Public Housing Health Project

Project Description:  The grant will allow Health People to test the effectiveness of a multifaceted peer-educator health promotion program in a Bronx public housing setting. The project represents a groundbreaking strategy to use public housing as a natural asset to deliver ongoing education targeted to fighting the South Bronx’s high chronic disease rates, particularly in diabetes. The project concentrates evidence-based education strategies where high risk populations can have access to regular "doses" of education as part of their daily activities. While health clinics are sometimes located in public housing, and various health education activities may sometimes occur in public housing, providing routine accessible disease management and disease prevention information via peer educators is an innovative approach. The strategy provides natural access to two high risk populations---people on public assistance and low-income working people, a group with the worst access to routine preventive health care.
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Grantee: Brownsville Community Development Corporation (BCDC)
Project Title: Brownsville Multiservice Family Health Center (BMS) Life and Wellness Spa

Project Description:  BMS, with eight (8) service sites in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn serves four (4) zip codes that contain 27% of Brooklyn’s high need population for chronic care treatment and services. Area residents have limited access to appropriate space for exercise and activity. The goal of this project is to “induce a wellness spread” in the community and reduce individuals’ health risk factors through physician-prescribed physical fitness and nutrition regimens delivered through a Life and Wellness Spa located nearby the health center. The BMS concept is to link medical care, EMR, and the patient by prescribing a holistic exercise and nutrition plan. This ground breaking project addresses the health needs, specifically nutrition and fitness, of an entire neighborhood, through the vehicle of primary care. If successful, this program could be replicated in other neighborhoods/cities with similar demographic and economic challenges.
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Grantee: HealthCorps
Project Title: Health Corps Program Effectiveness Evaluation

Project Description: 

This two-year project will study the effectiveness of Health Corps, the educational program created by cardio surgeon Mehmet Oz to promote and facilitate wellness behaviors in children and adolescents.  Health Corps takes a holistic approach to a healthy lifestyle by providing students with knowledge that will empower them to create healthy environments for themselves at home, at school, and at work.  Recent college graduates (“HealthCorps Coordinators”) are paid an annual stipend and given an educational award at the end of their tenure to dedicate two years of service to their community via HealthCorps.  The HealthCorps coordinators work in schools to promote the concept of holistic health, develop and nurture community partnerships (community-parents-teachers) and lead students in seminars on nutrition, physical fitness, mental resilience and other pertinent health issues.