Highlights

• Helped prevent 100,000 Kentuckians from losing health insurance. Read the Case Study.

• Addressed youth-vaping epidemic by winning passage of first excise tax on e-cigarettes as well as tobacco 21 and tobacco-free schools laws.

• Created public-service campaigns to educate Kentuckians on reducing youth e-cigarette use, preventing the spread of COVID-19, and improving immunizations to prevent the flu and childhood illnesses.

• Launched the Kentucky Coalition for Healthy Children to advocate for policies and programs to improve children’s health in the school setting.

• Launched the Rural ACEs project in the Lake Cumberland region to address Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs). The project trained more than 2,000 persons on interventions to build resilience and mitigate ACEs.

• Expanded the Foundation’s Community Advisory Council. Our “army of advocates,” grew from 22 members in 2018 to 59 members in December 2020. Council members support policies that improve health. Five regional forums were held.

• Distributed more than 14,300 tobacco-free campus signs to 201 school districts and 41 technology centers across Kentucky, in partnership with the Kentucky Medical Association.

• Supported targeted diabetes-prevention and treatment programs and education of both providers and the general public.

• Provided education and skills training via 37 Health for a Change programs and a series of five webinars on children’s health that reached hundreds of Kentuckians.

• Raised awareness and understanding of the public-health impacts of reducing restrictions on marijuana for medical use.

• Provided funding to support work of the Co-Immunity Project, a COVID-19 wastewater testing program which provides early warning of potential outbreaks, in Louisville and expanded the project to Graves County and Northern Kentucky.

• Supported community efforts to ensure a complete count in the 2020 Decennial Census with local grants.