Seeking grant to help LI workers get healthy

About two years ago, the Action Long Island business group wanted to see how it could help companies lower their health-care costs, said ALI chairman Sheldon Sackstein. There is one simple way, he found: keep business people healthy.

Action Long Island is now a partner, along with the Nassau County Department of Health, North Shore-LIJ Health Systems and NuHealth, which includes Nassau University Medical Center in East Meadow, in a bid to secure federal grants to study ways of making employees, and entire communities, more healthy. They're seeking $500,000 annually for five years from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The CDC plans to award 75 such grants nationwide and make its decision in the fall.

"Nassau County came to us and asked us to partner with them," Sackstein said. For the last two years ALI has been organizing the Long Island Corporate Wellness Challenge, which requires participating companies to set up exercise and health and wellness programs.

The program started with about 7,000 Long Island employees taking part. That number is now up to about 16,000.

Tavora Buchman, a research scientist at the Nassau health department, which applied for a Community Transformation Grant and will serve as the lead agency, said the participants will look to reduce such chronic diseases as high blood pressure and diabetes and to help people quit smoking. People within communities will be trained in how to understand "environmental challenges" and how to deal with them, Buchman said.

Lisa Burch, director of community health at North Shore-LIJ, will help survey data collected by the communities and other participants.

Sackstein said ALI thought about writing health care legislation but decided against it. "We looked at this from a business perspective," Sackstein said. "Let's just get Long Island healthier."