Letters from the Chair and CEO
Letter from 2020 Board Chair, Dr. Brent Wright
One of the Foundation for a Healthy Kentucky’s early leaders, Laurel True talked often about creating an “army of advocates” who would be actively engaged in promoting policies that would improve health in the Commonwealth. His vision has been at the forefront of much of the Foundation’s work in 2019 and 2020. Even in the face of a worldwide pandemic that moved us from in-person to virtual communications, we continued developing our cross-sector coalition approach to
policy advocacy, and more than doubled membership in the Foundation’s Community Advisory Council.
And the policy successes mounted as a result. The Foundation led or was a key player in the passage of three state laws to address the youth-vaping epidemic, as well as a lawsuit that ultimately prevented 100,000 Kentuckians from losing their health insurance. Our legacy grantees also have been instrumental in securing policies to improve health in their communities.
We also reorganized the Foundation’s governance structure to better support the role of the organization as the leading health advocate in the Commonwealth, and to better plan for board member succession.
This report provides more detail about each of these and many other Foundation projects during the past two years. I’m eagerly looking forward to supporting the Foundation as it grows partnerships and influence on health policy in Kentucky. If you’d like to get involved in this work, please reach out to the Foundation via its website at Healthy-KY.org.
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In health,
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Dr. Brent Wright, 2020 Chair
Foundation Board of Directors
Achieving Policy Successes
Building Diverse Coalitions
Letter from the CEO, Ben Chandler
I’m both proud and humbled regarding the successes that the Foundation for a Healthy Kentucky achieved in 2019 and 2020. The COVID-19 pandemic certainly changed the way we worked in 2020, but we remained committed to creating a policy environment at both state and local levels that is conducive to better health.
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Our leadership of the Coalition for a Smoke-Free Tomorrow in Kentucky was essential in encouraging the legislature to enact a tobacco-free campus law for
K-12 schools, raising the legal age for sales of tobacco products from 18 to 21, and adopting an excise tax on the only previously untaxed tobacco product on the market – e-cigarettes, or “vapes.” We also supported legislation to create a trust fund for Mental Health First Aid programs; this new law will allow more persons to be trained to recognize the symptoms of mental health or substance use disorder crisis and provide initial assistance until professional help is available.
In addition to advocating for new laws, we worked to ensure broad and equitable implementation. For example, we partnered with the Kentucky Medical Association to distribute 14,300 tobacco-free campus signs to more than 240 school districts and technology centers across the state. This free signage program provided the incentive that many school districts needed to adopt the new policy quickly, thereby protecting more students from exposure to tobacco products.
Following the same coalition approach that led to success in tobacco-control policy advocacy, we launched a new coalition to improve children’s health. We know that the partners in the Kentucky Coalition for Healthy Children are as committed as we are to advocating for evidence-based health-related policies in the K-12 school setting.
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Recognizing the importance of measuring the real-world impact of our work, the Foundation also completed the evaluation of two major initiatives from our 2012-2018 strategic plan, Investing in Kentucky’s Future (IKF) and Promoting Responsive Health Policy (PRHP). Both led to advances in policies and improved health behaviors among participating students in the IKF initiative. Additional results included environmental and systemic changes and the adoption of local policies that are shown to sustain those behaviors in the long-term toward better health outcomes as they grow into adults.
We have a lot of work to do and some days we feel like we’re just getting started. The urgency that feeling creates is a good thing, however, so please follow along or, better yet, join us in the campaign for improved health in Kentucky.
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Ben Chandler
President and CEO