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The Pittsburgh Financial Empowerment Center: Unlocking Financial Freedom to Provide a More Complete Overall Health Care Picture
As of November 2022, the Pittsburgh Financial Empowerment Center has helped 1227 clients, saved them over $2 million, and helped reduce their debt by almost $3.5 million. Counselor Alicia Donner discusses how the organization not only provides financial assistance but also helps patients cope with unexpected health care expenses.
The Pittsburgh Financial Empowerment Center (FEC) opened in March of 2019, and it currently offers financial counseling in the 4 main areas of financial empowerment: access to safe and affordable banking, building and improving credit, reducing debt, and increasing savings. Services toward home and small business ownership and general money management are also provided.
As of November 2022, the FEC has helped 1227 clients, saved them over $2 million, and helped reduce their debt by almost $3.5 million.
While in Pittsburgh recently to visit the UPMC Health Plan Neighborhood Center, we sat down with Alicia Donner, counselor, to learn more about the FEC, which is a community partner of the Neighborhood Center, and its services.
Donner notes that, “Looking at community health, and health holistically, is so important, and just from my lens, financial resilience in the health space is just being able to weather an unexpected expense or the expenses that come with a health care crisis.”
Historically Redlined Areas Face Inequities in Rapid EMS Care Access
August 5th 2025Residents in historically redlined grade D areas were 1.67 times more likely to have no rapid access to EMS than in grade A areas, increasing their hazard risk of injury-related morbidity and mortality.
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Racial/Ethnic Differences in Colorectal Cancer Screening in the US
August 4th 2025Data from the 2021 National Health Interview Survey showed racial/ethnic differences in colorectal cancer screening were due to demographic and socioeconomic factors, except for low colonoscopy use in Asian individuals.
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