WBFO and WNED-AM Awarded Grant for Health Programming

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- WBFO-FM 88.7, the National Public Radio affiliate operated by the University at Buffalo, and WNED-AM 970, part of the Western New York Public Broadcasting Association, are embarking on a programming collaboration that will explore health issues affecting minorities living in Buffalo's Near East Side neighborhoods.

The program will be funded through a $35,000 grant to the stations from "Sound Partners for Community Health," a program of the Benton Foundation and funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

The collaboration, "Wellness for All: Building Healthy Communities by Eliminating Disparities," also will involve three community partners: Kaleida Health, the Black Leadership Forum and WBLK Radio in collaboration with the Buffalo Chapters of the NAACP and National Medical Association. The public radio stations and their partners will produce programming that examines issues uncovered in a 2001 report, "The Health Status of the Near East Side Black Community," prepared by the University at Buffalo Center for Urban Studies and the UB Center for Research in Primary Care.

WBFO and WNED-AM will produce and air a series of long-form feature reports that will address:

-- The prevalence of diseases such as hypertension, heart disease, diabetes, cancer and asthma in the minority community

-- The barriers to proper nutrition in Buffalo's urban neighborhoods and ways to overcome these barriers

-- What it takes to be physically active in urban Buffalo

-- The use of the Emergency Room as the primary place to go for medical treatment/advice, the dangers of this practice and how it affects long-term health

-- The high number of smokers in Buffalo's urban neighborhoods, the long-term affects of smoking on the smoker and his/her family and smoking cessation programs available in the area.

In addition, the stations will sponsor and broadcast live community forums in churches and community centers on the Near East Side. WNED-AM News Director Jim Ranney and WBFO News Director Mark Scott will oversee production of the five-part series and the community forums.

The public radio stations will work with partners Kaleida Health, the Black Leadership Forum, and the Buffalo chapters of the NAACP and National Medical Association on a series of meaningful outreach activities. Planned activities include events promoting healthy living to be held at community centers and churches. The partners also will assist the stations' producers with research. WBLK, a station that targets Buffalo's African-American community, will assist WBFO and WNED-AM in reaching out to the black community.

WBFO, a major public service of the University at Buffalo, programs a mix of NPR News and jazz. WNED-AM, owned by Western New York Public Broadcasting, is a 24-hour news and information service.

The two stations have a history of collaboration. WBFO was a media co-sponsor for the WNED Buffalo Niagara Guitar Festival in 2001 and 2002. WNED-TV and WBFO also worked together as part of the public television presentation of Ken Burns' "Jazz" series in January 2001. But this will mark the first programming collaboration the stations are undertaking.

"Working together makes so much sense," said Jennifer Roth, WBFO General Manager. "Combined, the two newsrooms have Buffalo radio's most talented broadcast journalists who will come together to address a specific need in our community."

"We're looking to educate the community about minority health-care issues in Buffalo," said Donald Boswell, president of Western New York Public Broadcasting. "We want to provide the public at large with a deeper understanding of minority health and its effect on our region's overall health and economy."

"Sound Partners for Community Health" is a program administered by the Benton Foundation and funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Its goals are to increase public awareness of specific health issues and to facilitate citizens' involvement in making decisions affecting health care. Since 1997, 68 grants totaling $2 million have been distributed to public radio stations around the country.

In 2000, WNED-AM received a "Sound Partners" grant. The station worked with the Center for Hospice and Palliative Care in Buffalo to raise awareness and understanding about end-of-life issues. A five-part series produced under the grant, "One Day at a Time: Living with Dying," received a first-place award for best news series by the Associated Press of New York.

This most recent grant marks WBFO's first involvement with "Sound Partners."