We Are Ready

Peter Schafer - Consultant

Peter Schafer has extensive experience developing and writing grant proposals for non-profit organizations. Recent work has focused on racial disparities in health, the social determinants of health, and CBO-clinical partnerships in the context of Medicaid value-based payment reforms.

Mr. Schafer’s proposals have resulted in $7.3 million in grant awards to his CBO clients since 2019. This success builds upon a wealth of experience in designing, implementing, and evaluating community-based programs that serve low-income people with complex needs.

As Director of the Center for Health Policy and Programs at the New York Academy of Medicine (NYAM), Mr. Schafer developed cross-sectoral collaborative relationships to expand the knowledge base and scope of public policy to improve the health of people who use drugs and to address racial disparities in maternal health. Responsibilities included developing study designs, writing grant proposals to support mixed methods applied research, directing primary and secondary data collection and data analysis, developing policy and practice recommendations, and writing project reports and policy briefs. He was Principal Investigator of a study funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to examine the impact of harm reduction and health care services integration on the health of people who use drugs; and under contract to the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, he directed a study on the feasibility of establishing supervised injection facilities in New York City. With his expertise in maternal and child health, he led NYAM’s recent policy work on maternal mortality and organized the 2018 New York Maternal Mortality Summit.

Prior to working at NYAM, Mr. Schafer worked as the Baltimore site Principal Investigator and later Co-Investigator for the Community Child Health Network (CCHN), a multi-site observational study funded by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. CCHN was dedicated to comprehensively investigating the role of maternal and paternal stress and resilience in relation to racial disparities in maternal and child health. CCHN operated according to the principles of community-based participatory research, characterized by an equal partnership between participating community-based organizations and academic institutions.

Mr. Schafer’s role with CCHN grew out of his work as Executive Director and, prior to that, Director of Policy and Program Evaluation at Baltimore Healthy Start (BHS). BHS is a private non-profit corporation which had responsibility for three direct-service programs during Mr. Schafer’s tenure: the Healthy Start infant mortality reduction and family support services program; the Lead Abatement Action Project childhood lead poisoning prevention program; and the Recovery in Community substance use treatment program. With his colleagues at BHS, he developed a series of innovations that combined services to address the social determinants of health in marginalized communities with the early identification of emergent clinical conditions; for example, utilizing the skills of trained community health workers to identify signs and symptoms of preterm labor at home visits, followed by immediate nurse review and medical referral and treatment.

During his time at BHS, Mr. Schafer occasionally conducted grant application reviews for the Health Resources & Services Administration, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, gaining insights into the process by which grant applications are evaluated at the federal level.

Prior to working at Baltimore Healthy Start, Mr. Schafer worked as a Policy Analyst in the Division of Maternal & Child Health, Medical Care Policy Administration, in the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. Mr. Schafer designed and implemented policies to expand Medicaid eligibility for pregnant women and children; developed new Medicaid covered services for pregnant women; and designed the Maryland maternal and infant home visiting services intake and referral system in conjunction with Maryland Title V and local health departments.

Mr. Schafer has a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of California, Berkeley.