AMA Awards First Community Health Impact Lab Micro Grants

Physician-led initiatives across the country receive funding to advance community-driven health solutions

CHICAGO, Aug. 12, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The American Medical Association (AMA) today announced the inaugural recipients of its $1 million Community Health Impact Lab micro grants. Launched in 2025, the initiative supports physician-led projects partnering with organizations to address pressing community health challenges through innovative, scalable, community-centered solutions.

Twenty grant recipients each received $50,000 to support strengthening partnerships beyond the clinical setting and testing innovative approaches that can be replicated in communities nationwide. The program reflects the AMA's commitment to advancing sustainable, community-driven solutions that achieve optimal health for all.

"These inaugural recipients demonstrate the unique role physicians can play leading projects in partnership with others that improve health and drive positive change in in their community," said AMA President Willie Underwood III, MD, MSc, MPH. "From expanding access to preventive care and maternal health services to addressing mental health, nutrition, and chronic disease, these physician-led initiatives reflect the innovation and collaboration needed to improve health outcomes across a variety of communities with demonstrated health needs."

The inaugural awardees represent projects spanning rural and urban communities across the United States and address a wide range of health priorities, including maternal health, food as medicine, cancer screening, diabetes prevention, behavioral health, firearm injury prevention, transportation barriers to care, and pediatric health.

The recipients and projects selected for the 2026 Community Health Impact Lab micro grants include:

AltaMed Health Services Corporation, Los Angeles, Calif.

• Project: A Community-Based, Psychoeducational Approach to Mitigating Toxic Stress among Families within a Large FQHC Pediatric Primary Care Setting
• Objective: Adapting trauma-informed resilience coaching within pediatric primary care to strengthen behavioral health support for underserved children and families.

Boston Medical Center, Boston, Mass.

• Project: Primary Care Innovations to Support Heart Health after Hypertensive Pregnancies
• Objective: Developing group medical visits for postpartum women with hypertensive disorders of pregnancy and informing protocols that address critical primary care shortages.

Children’s National, Washington, D.C.

• Project: Scripts to School & Home
• Objective: Increasing medication access and adherence to improve pediatric asthma outcomes.

Children's Hospital at Montefiore Einstein, Bronx, N.Y.

• Project: AI Risk Stratification to Support Community Health Worker Service Intensity for Children Hospitalized With Asthma
• Objective: Using AI-driven risk stratification to identify unmet social needs and connect children with asthma to targeted community health worker support.

Delta Health System, Greenville, Miss.

• Project: Breaking Access Barriers in the Mississippi Delta
• Objective: Expanding access to preventive and chronic disease care through a mobile clinic serving rural Mississippi communities.

Ichan School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, N.Y.

• Project: Bringing Rehabilitation Care to People Experiencing Homelessness: The Mobile Rehabilitation Project
• Objective: Delivering physical medicine and rehabilitation services to people experiencing homelessness.

Lantern, Denver, Colo.

• Project: Supporting Families with Food Insecurity through MEAL Nationwide Expansion
• Objective: Streamlining access to local food resources and delivering an evidence-informed SMS (text-based) curriculum.

Luke's House–A Clinic for Healing and Hope, Greater New Orleans, La.

• Project: Hybrid Mobile-Telehealth & Community-Centered Access Initiative
• Objective: Bringing physician-led care directly to families who face compounding barriers to care through an integrated model.

Northwestern Medicine, Chicago, Ill.

• Project: HANDS at the Bedside
• Objective: Integrating organizations directly into the emergency department to provide real-time services for patients experiencing homelessness.

Oklahoma State University Center for Health Sciences, Tulsa, Okla.

• Project: Witnessing-Based ECHO: Testimony-Driven Training to Prevent MOUD Discontinuation During Insurance Disruption
• Objective: Strengthening teaching tools for health providers caring for patients on medication for opioid use disorder (MOUD).

The Queen's Medical Center, Honolulu, Hawaii

• Project: A Physician-Led, Community-Centered Nutrition Initiative to Support Indigenous Women's Health Across the Life Course
• Objective: Advancing culturally responsive food-as-medicine strategies that improve nutrition across the life course for Indigenous women.

Sturdy Health, Bristol and Norfolk Counties, Mass.

• Project: Sturdy Health Transportation & Companion Access Program
• Objective: Removing transportation and companion barriers that prevent patients from accessing needed medical care.

Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center, West Texas

• Project: The Hemoglobin A1C Project
• Objective: Bringing structured diabetes screening and monitoring to rural frontier communities through mobile care.

Thomas Jefferson University/Jefferson Health, Philadelphia, Penn.

• Project: Expanding Cervical Cancer Screening Access Through HPV Self-Sampling in the Community: A Patient-Centered, Equity-Driven Approach
• Objective: Expanding cervical cancer screening by combining HPV self-sampling with multilingual community outreach and education.

Trinity Health Muskegon, Muskegon, Mich.

• Project: Physician-Led Firearm Death Review Team to Advance Community Health and Health Equity
• Objective: Building a multidisciplinary review process to identify preventable causes of firearm deaths and develop community prevention strategies.

University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, Calif.

• Project: JustConnect: Holistic Healing & Addiction Medicine Linkage for Justice-Impacted Individuals
• Objective: Physician-led partnership linking justice-impacted adults to addiction treatment and sustained recovery.

University of Kansas Department of Family Medicine and Community Health, Miami County, Kan.

• Project: Community-engaged Food is Medicine in rural Kansas
• Objective: Strengthening coordination and activities of the local food system to improve residents’ health.

University of Wisconsin–Madison, Columbia County, Wis.

• Project: Enhancing Breast Cancer Screening in Columbia County
• Objective: Increasing rural breast cancer screening through community education and on-site mammography scheduling.

Wellstar Health System, Atlanta and Augusta, Ga.

• Project: Arts-Based Intervention for Mental Health Equity in Georgia
• Objective: Using arts-based community engagement to reduce social isolation and expand culturally responsive mental health care.

The Women's Empowerment and Birth Equity Institute (WEBE Institute), Mecklenburg County, N.C.

• Project: Bridging the Gap Project: Advancing Postpartum Cardiovascular Health Equity for Black Mothers in Mecklenburg County, NC
• Objective: Improving postpartum cardiovascular health through individualized coaching and long-term support for Black mothers.

The Community Health Impact Lab micro grants are part of the AMA’s broader efforts to partner with physicians and communities to develop innovative solutions that address the underlying drivers of health and expand access to high-quality care. By investing in physician-led innovation and community partnerships, the AMA aims to identify approaches that can be evaluated, refined, replicated, and scaled to improve health in communities across the country.

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