On December 5, Mayor Eric Adams announced a partnership with the American College of Lifestyle Medicine (ACLM) to make New Yorkers healthier. The campaign, which is being dubbed “lifestyle medicine” will see 44 million dollars, allocated by ACLM, to free introductory training in the field of nutrition and lifestyle medicine to healthcare practitioners across the five boroughs.
Lifestyle medicine is a branch of medicine which uses a holistic approach and specializes in disease prevention and recovery by implementing a healthy diet, regular sleep schedules, physical activity and mental wellbeing. Mayor Adam’s initiative comes at a time when, according to the CDC, 6 in 10 adults in the US have a chronic disease and more than 100 million adults are afflicted by diabetes or pre-diabetes symptoms.
The first step of the plan will be to partner with 20 hospitals across the city to train doctors, dietitians, as well as other health care professionals. The goal is to cover training for about 200,000 medical practitioners and to strengthen medical prevention for diseases related to poor healthcare such as diabetes, cardiovascular issues and neurodegenerative diseases.
Both public and private hospitals will participate in the embryonic phase of the project and include hospitals as One Brooklyn Health System, NYU Langone Health, Mount Sinai Health System and BronxCare Health System.
Cate Collins, President of ACLM said, “ACLM is proud to make this investment in expanding the knowledge of health professionals in New York City and ultimately in better health for its citizens”.
“Treating the root cause of chronic disease in this country, and especially lifestyle-related chronic disease health disparities, will positively change the trajectory of both quality of life and health costs,” she continued.
Similarly, Mayor Eric Adams said that “our administration has invested in expanding lifestyle medicine programming and plant-based meals at NYC Health + Hospitals, and now, we’re bringing this evidence-based model to all of New York City’s health care workforce.”
Through his lifestyle plan, Mayor Eric Adams hopes that “New York City will not continue to feed the healthcare crisis.”
