Univera Healthcare names recipients of 2024 Health Equity Innovation Awards

Univera Healthcare is excited to announce the recipients of its Health Equity Innovation Awards. These awards provide funding to community-based organizations to support community programs focused on combating racial and ethnic health disparities. 

Thirteen nonprofit 501(c)(3) organizations from across Western New York are sharing in more than $100,000 in funding support from Univera Healthcare. As an added benefit for this year’s round of awards, the Health Foundation for Western & Central New York is providing additional funding to enhance the impact of the awards program. 

The award recipients are: 

• Erie County Medical Center (ECMC) Foundation - ECMC Dental Outreach: The program will provide screenings, education, and oral health products to encourage the local population to seek additional care with a dental health professional. 

• Roswell Park Alliance Foundation - Esperanza y Vida Program Expansion: The program will use evidence-based outreach strategies to educate Hispanic and Latino individuals on the risk of breast cancer and mammogram eligibility. 

• Calming Nature Doula Center - Nurturing Futures: Empowering Moms Initiative: The program will provide personalized, continuous care during pregnancy, labor, and postpartum, significantly enhancing maternal wellbeing and fostering a positive birthing experience. 

• Neighborhood Health Center of WNY, Inc. - Reducing Hypertension through Integrated Care: The program will help people live healthier and more secure lives by increasing the knowledge and skill of clinicians, tailoring approaches to hypertension management to the individual, and reducing acute and long-term complications of hypertension.

• Suburban Adult Services Inc. - Creating Inclusive Entrepreneurship Opportunities for Individuals with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (I/DD): The program will help individuals with I/DD generate income through self-employment, allowing them to reduce reliance on family or government assistance and foster a sense of financial independence. 

• Community Missions of Niagara Frontier, Inc. - Farm Fresh Market: The program will information about the benefits of healthier food in their home, while also reducing their food costs. The food services often serve as the "front door" to the agency and its other programs, including the free Clothes Closet, furniture giveaway, or community kitchen programs, and mental health, youth, or substance use disorder programs.

• Gerard Place for Healthy Mom & Baby- Pre/Post Natal Care and Support: The program will make impactful, measurable differences in maternal/baby health and security in several ways, including extending breastfeeding rates, engaging moms with mental health care, promoting safe sleep practices, and increasing rates of engagement with prenatal and postnatal medical appointments. 

• Houghton University - Expanding Mental Wellness Programs in Rural Higher Education: The program will help students, particularly those from low-income and rural areas, who often lack appropriate education on mental health and wellness topics and proper independent self-care routines. 

• Hope of Buffalo, Inc. DBA: Peaceprints of WNY - Project Blue Niagara County Expansion: The program will provide clients with pathways to long-term employment; safe, clean, supportive housing; basic needs like food, clothing, and hygiene supplies; links to medical, mental health, and substance use disorder treatment; educational and other services.

• Chautauqua County Aging Services - Local Roots: The program will provide access to healthy produce and monitor participant’s blood pressure and BMI, with the goal of reducing those health outcome measures.

• Community Connections at Findley Lake: The program provides the building blocks of well-being, including access to food, companionship, and safe housing, to help residents remain safe and healthy in their own homes as they age.

• Harvest House Buffalo - Good Neighbors Dental Care: The program is community-centered, allowing for enhanced voice and empowerment in achieving individualized health care goals in an equitable way.   

• Community Health Center of Buffalo, Inc. (CHCB) - Addressing Health Equity Through Diabetes Management and Oral Health: The program will address diabetes management and oral health within federally qualified health centers (FQHCs), with a focus on health equity.

This is the fourth year Univera Healthcare has presented its Health Equity Innovation Awards, following an open call for applications and a rigorous review of the submissions. 

Please do not attribute statement to the names below, instead please attribute to: Spokespeople from Univera Healthcare.