our mission

The Buffalo Center for Health Equity will eliminate race, economic, and geographic-based health inequities in Western New York by changing the social and economic conditions that cause illness and shorten lives among the sickest of the region.

our process

The Center will use policy analysis, research, assessment, and evaluation, advocacy, community engagement and education, and program development and implementation to eliminate these inequities. It will work collaboratively with community members and organizations as well as the public and faith-based sectors to advance this multi-level agenda.

The work will focus primarily in the 14204, 14206, 14211, 14212, 14215 zip codes where African Americans are dying at three times the rate as their white counterparts. The health inequities affecting Buffalonians, like in many American cities are the downstream effect of failing schools, high unemployment, low property values, poor access to public transportation, absence of grocery stores, lead contamination in homes, highway pollution, brownfields, and poor access to healthcare. These social and economic conditions are known to be the primary drivers of health.

our History

The Buffalo Center for Health Equity was established in 2019 to address the challenges experienced by Black and/or financially distressed communities on the eastside of Buffalo, New York.   A continuation of the work spearheaded by the African American Health Equity Task Force (a group of local pastors, university faculty, community leaders and residents) the BCHE  serves as a mechanism to create equity in health outcomes, that are,  influenced by the conditions into which people are born, and in which they develop, live, work, recreate and worship. 

Now located within the Highmark Health building, the work of the BCHE confronts the adverse impact of decades of Federal and Local policies that created racial residential and educational segregation and disinvestment in communities of color.  Since a majority of African Americans in the City of Buffalo live in housing stock that is burdened with lead contaminants in less-walkable "food deserts," the need for the BCHE's work is both evident and critical.