ICS Vice President Receives Community Health Award

Marilyn Saviola, the director of the Women’s Health Access Program at Independence Care Systems (ICS), received the Joan H. Tisch Community Health Prize at a ceremony in New York City in June.

The program, established in 2008, works to achieve health care equity for women with physical disabilities.

“Historically, when we talked about disparities in access to health care, we seldom heard people with disabilities mentioned,” Saviola said at the ceremony. “This prize — devoted, as it is, to improving urban public health — is helping, right now, to change that conversation.”

Saviola said that work on behalf of people with disabilities is far from over when it comes to achieving health care equity. While the disability community has made “great strides with education and transportation, we’re still in the dark ages with health care,” she said.

Saviola is also the vice president of advocacy at ICS, an affiliate of PHI.

— by Matthew Ozga