AMA Foundation

• In 2008, the AMA Foundation awarded a total of $1,292,655 in scholarships and grants.
• Over 330 students and residents across the country have been able to conduct important medical research with financial assistance from the AMA Foundation. 
• Over $600,000 has been awarded to 26 free clinics that provide much needed medical care at little or no cost to uninsured patients.
• Since 1999, the AMA Foundation has been a leader in the health literacy field – educating tens of thousands of physicians and health care professionals around the world through toolkits, reports, trainings, and videos.
• The Fund for Better Health has provided over 200 grants totaling nearly $300,000 to healthy lifestyles projects throughout the United States.
• In 2008, the AMA Foundation awarded nearly a half million dollars in scholarships for medical students.
• The AMA Foundation has supported public health initiatives, scholarships and research grants with over $90 million since its inception in 1950. 

• One hundred percent of physicians who evaluated the Foundation’s health literacy toolkit stated that it:
  • defined the scope of health literacy
  • enabled them to recognize health system barriers faced by patients with low literacy
  • enabled them to implement improved methods of verbal and written communication
  • provided them with practical strategies for creating a shame-free environment
• Fund for Better Health recipient Campfire USA in Omaha, Nebraska, sponsored the ‘Jumpstart My Day’ program, encouraging nutrition and physical fitness for youth over a period of six weeks.  Post tests indicated that 80% improved their running skills, 59% improved sit-up capability, 75% improved their push up ability and 61% learned at least one new thing about cooking. 
• Volunteers in Health, a free clinic in Red Bank, N.J., used their $25,000 Healthy Communities/Healthy America grant to enroll their diabetic patients into a management program, helping 59% of them control their blood sugar (A1C levels at 7% or lower).  Another 16% of patients are approaching that mark with A1C readings of 7.0-7.9%.
• Scholarship recipients have reported that the award gave them:
  • financial relief
  • less stress
  • renewed sense of purpose and encouragement
  • prestige of award opened doors for them
  • networking opportunities
• Fund for Better Health recipient Media for Health broadcasts the radio drama BodyLove in Birmingham, Alabama.  BodyLove uses entertainment-education to reach a primarily an African American audience with health-related messages.  When asked to indicate the level of influence (0-100%) on a number of behaviors, listeners indicated that BodyLove had a very high level of influence, greater than 70%, on talking about or getting screened for diabetes and high blood pressure as well as starting to exercise and begin a healthier diet.  The listenership of the show can be up to 48,000 people in the state of Alabama on any given hour.
• The Traverse Health Clinic and Coalition reported that they used their $25,000 Healthy Communities/Healthy America grant to decrease wait time for new patients from 6 weeks to 3-4 weeks and increased nurse practitioner productivity from seeing 8-10 patients per three-hour clinic to 12-14 patients.
• Fund for Better Health recipient Schulenburg Weimar In Focus Together presented nutrition and physical fitness information to over 1200 K-8th grade children in Schulenburg, Texas.  99% of program participants reported an increase understanding of the factors that contribute to good health. 

More Healthy Communities/Healthy America grant results

• One individual who has benefited from Seed Grant Research funding is Noah Rodriguez, MD at Brigham and Women’s Hospital who stated, “Ovarian cancer claims over 15,000 women’s lives annually.  With the help of the AMA Foundation, my research will contribute to the discovery of early screening tests as well as potential therapeutic targets to fight this deadly disease.”
• “This grant, in the amount of $25,000, provides meaningful assistance as we continue to offer services, free of charge, to our patients…Your foundation’s support has never been more important.  Contributions such as this allow us to provide access, dignity, and hope to a growing population of our neighbors and friends,” said Danny Williams, JD, MNO, Executive Director of The Free Medical Clinic of Greater Cleveland, a Healthy Communities/Healthy America grant recipient.
• Cherie Cross, a student at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and Minority Scholars Award recipient, stated, “This award has really allowed me to be less concerned about having to choose a high-paying specialty solely to pay off my debt.”
• Andrew Barina, a student at Saint Louis University School of Medicine and Physicians of Tomorrow Scholarship recipient, stated, “I am in the process of getting married and hoping to start a family.  Reducing my debt by $10,000 will reduce the amount I need to repay by far more than that amount, and this will reduce the financial burden…that my fiancé, also a 4th year medical student, and I have to bear.”
• Dixie Tooke-Rawlins, DO, Dean and Vice President of Edward Via Virginia College of Osteopathic Medicine (VCOM), stated that their Fund for Better Health supported Drug Free School Program has had“…a great impact in an impoverished region of Appalachia where the students are at great risk for substance abuse and an area where there is the greatest increase in deaths from prescription drug abuse. The AMA Foundation grant will allow the VCOM program to reach even more at risk students.”
• Mary Rice, President of the San Luis Valley Medical Society Alliance in Del Norte, Colorado, stated that the Fund for Better Health grant “will be a tremendous help to us in beginning our signature project ‘Your Seat is Reserved’ which will provide car seats to the underprivileged infants and toddlers in our area.  We would not have been able to start this project without your assistance;  we are truly honored and grateful.”