Vision
AIRnyc continues to rise to meet the changing needs of the communities we serve. It is our hope that one day every person receives equitable healthcare, housing, and access to high-quality resources regardless of their income and where they live. We will continue to create and expand programs that serve the health and social needs of New Yorkers while finding innovative ways to help people in our community.
Our purpose.
AIRnyc’s mission is to improve equity in healthcare access and social care for underserved people of all ages, races, ethnicities, and faiths who bear the highest burdens of poverty and chronic disease. Here at AIRnyc, Community Health Workers meet people where they live to improve health, connect families to social care and build health equity at the individual, family, and community level.
Underserved communities, impacted by structural racism, disproportionately suffer from chronic disease. This impact is worsened by housing instability, food insecurity, unemployment, and a lack of access to quality care and services. We work at the intersection of these injustices to connect with community residents and help them navigate and achieve the best health and social care outcomes. \
AIRnyc reaches out with one hand to partner and integrate with clinical teams, and another to support and build trust with people in the community, bridging gaps in care with empathy, motivation, and gentle nudges, with the technology to achieve valuable outcomes for patients, providers and payers.
Our story.
AIRnyc began 20 years ago as an evidence-based, participatory research project among Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, The Harlem Hospital Center, and Harlem Children’s Zone to address the high prevalence of pediatric asthma in Harlem.
Over the years, we have expanded to become city-wide to meet the growing and changing needs of New Yorkers, using these same skills to address not only asthma, but a plethora of other chronic health conditions and social needs. Since the beginning, we’ve been doing health equity-based work. In that time, the health care community has caught on to the significance of our role. AIRnyc started with five CHWs (some of whom are still with us) and now has a team of over 30. We are a listening ear for patients who have no one to speak to, giving them the voice they need. We have adapted to the community’s needs as they change, including in the last few years, when we pivoted our long-standing program intervention model to be hybrid and remote rather than home visit-based to continue working during the COVID-19 pandemic and meet the emerging needs of the people we serve.