Suzanne Brundage, director of the Children's Health Initiative at United Hospital Fund, has been selected for the second year in a row as UHF's Patricia S. Levinson Fellow. The fellowship was established in 2017 through the generous support of the Robert A. and Patricia S. Levinson Award Fund at the New York Community Trust to advance UHF's work to improve health care for vulnerable populations.
The Children's Health Initiative, launched in 2015, is working to help pediatric primary care practices identify psychosocial risks to early childhood development, and connect children and families to supports and resources that can help mitigate those risks. It launched the Partnerships for Early Childhood Development (PECD) project in 2017 to further that goal by encouraging and supporting clinical-community partnerships between 11 NYC health systems and 18 community-based organizations.
Suzanne is the author of the UHF white paper Seizing the Moment: Strengthening Children's Primary Care in New York, which lays out a vision for more effective pediatric primary care in New York, and a pending report on the impact of the first year of the PECD project. She is an inaugural member of the Children's Health Leadership Network established by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, The David & Lucille Packard Foundation, and Atlantic Philanthropies. Prior to joining UHF in 2014, she was the assistant director of the Global Health Policy Center at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, DC. She has also worked with Catholic AIDS Action in Namibia, Nationwide Children's Hospital, and Boston Medical Center. A graduate of Bennington College, where she serves as a trustee, she holds a master's degree from the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health.
Patricia S. Levinson was a vice chairman of UHF's board at the time of her death in 2015. She was an active board member for more than 20 years, and involved as a volunteer with UHF for more than 30, with a keen interest in health policy and deep commitment to quality health care for every New Yorker.