NYAM’s evidence-based policy agenda combines research and advocacy to pursue the goals of strengthening systems that prevent disease and promote the public's health, encouraging healthy aging, and eliminating disparities for vulnerable populations.
Topic Areas:
Disease Prevention & Health Promotion
Supporting Healthy Aging
Vulnerable Populations
Disease Prevention & Health Promotion
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Strategic Alliance for Health. NYAM is partnering with the Harlem and South Bronx District Public Health Offices to create a consortium of community partners that will develop and implement a 5-year plan to improve local opportunities for physical activity and healthy nutrition throughout the lifespan, and decrease tobacco use. Funded by the CDC, the Alliance will use sustainable, evidence-based community health approaches that promote policy, systems, and environmental change.
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Workforce Development. NYAM’s Social Work Leadership Institute (SWLI) aims to grow the workforce of social workers who specialize in aging, to improve long-term, community-based care for older adults so that health and social services are more comprehensive, better linked, and to ensure that caregivers get the support they deserve.
Long-Term Care and Care Coordination. SWLI is leading the advancement of long-term care and care coordination through policy advocacy, research, education, and alliances with academic institutions, professional groups representing workers in long-term care, government, aging and social work organizations, and public policy institutions. More information is available at http://socialworkleadership.org/nsw/work/ourwork.php.
Aging in a Foreign Land. NYAM is leading an international initiative that pairs a researcher and policy maker from a city that receives immigrants with colleagues from the immigrants?originating city to examine: the key characteristics of immigrant communities and receiving communities that support immigrant elders; how best practices supporting older people within immigrant communities can be replicated, adapted, and/or exported to other countries; the lessons that can be drawn from existing policies; and how the advocacy communities for the aged and for immigrants can join together to support age-friendly policies for older immigrants. The protocol for this research and advocacy project is being collaboratively developed by participating city representatives, which include Beirut, Essen-Ruhr, Hong Kong, Istanbul, Melbourne, Montreal, and Vancouver. Along with serving as the secretariat for the project, NYAM will participate as part of the research pair that includes New York City and Kingston, Jamaica.
Vulnerable Populations
The New York State Health Reentry Work Group. At the request of the NYS Department of Corrections Chief Medical Officer, NYAM has convened and staffed a group working to link recently released prisoners to medical care. The group is working to ensure prisoners who are eligible for Medicaid receive coverage before release or upon their first medical appointment in the community. The group is also developing policies and programs to insure that incarcerated individuals leave prison with the knowledge and skills needed to access and navigate the health care system and is seeking funding for a demonstration program that links prisoners with chronic health conditions to a medical home and comprehensive case management services upon release.Drug Policy. In order to explore concepts and strategies to shift from a criminal justice to a public health approach to drug policy in New York City and State, the Drug Policy Alliance and the New York Academy of Medicine are planning a two-day conference in New York in 2009. The Conference will bring together community organizations, advocates, researchers, service providers and academics in the criminal justice and public health fields to explore questions related to New York’s drug policies and to set NY on a path towards a new paradigm in our drug policies—one of public health, not criminal justice.
Integrated Buprenorphine and HIV Care Evaluation and Support Center. Programs which integrate HIV care and drug treatment have the potential to improve both substance use and health outcomes in patients struggling with addiction. The Drug Addiction Treatment Act of 2000 and the approval of buprenorphine (a new opiate agonist treatment) for the office-based treatment of opioid addiction provide a new opportunity to integrate addiction treatment and medical care for people with HIV. However, little is known about implementing such programs in HIV care settings; their cost; what effect they have on the health and substance use of people living with HIV/AIDS; or what broader impact they have on providers, institutions, and local systems. The Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) funded a five-year initiative to develop and evaluate ten model programs that integrate HIV primary care and buprenorphine treatment for opioid dependence, as well as a national evaluation and technical assistance center headed by Ruth Finkelstein.
Physician Training and Clinical Support Center for Buprenorphine Prescribers. Because buprenorphine may be prescribed for the treatment of opioid addiction by any physician in an office-based setting, it has tremendous potential to both expand treatment capacity and to create new options for people unable or unwilling to seek treatment through traditional methadone programs. However, thus far, few physicians have elected to be trained and certified to prescribe buprenorphine. The Division of Health Policy has received funding from the American Society of Addiction Medicine to evaluate their new buprenorphine physician training and clinical support center, which is supported through the Center for Substance Abuse Treatment. This unique program is designed to support physicians who would like to prescribe buprenorphine for the treatment of opioid addiction but lack clinical expertise and/or training. Interested physicians will be assigned to a mentor physician, who is an experienced prescriber and who can provide ongoing support via email and phone. DHP will evaluate this mentor program in order to determine what level of support physicians require to prescribe buprenorphine as well as participants' satisfaction with the program. The evaluation will also track the extent to which prescribing practices change over time. We hope that this program will both expand the number of physicians prescribing buprenorphine and provide a model for programs to support prescribing physicians.
For more information about these initiatives, contact Rosemary Alcantara.
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