NEW YORK — CVS Health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and Bayer Consumer Health + BrightGuard were the big winners Tuesday evening at the Consumer Healthcare Products Association (CHPA) Educational Foundation at the Plaza Hotel in Manhattan. The CHPA’s annual gala celebrates the foundation’s mission of happier, healthier lives through responsible self-care and serves as its main fundraising event.

The gala highlighted the foundation’s important work and achievements over the past year to educate consumers about safe use, storage, and disposal of over-the-counter medicines, with initiatives such as the Acetaminophen Awareness Coalition’s Know Your Dose campaign and the Up and Away campaign, led by the CDC and its PROTECT Initiative. Dr. Dan Budnitz, director of the CDC Medication Safety Program, was the keynote speaker.

CVS Health took home the Distinguished Industry Partner of the Year Award for championing the important issue of safe medicine storage. In June, CVS Health partnered with the foundation during National Safety Month to remind customers across 8,000 of its stores about the importance of putting medicines “up, away, and out of sight and reach of young children.”

Anita Brikman (CHPA), George Coleman (CVS), Mary Leonard (CHPA)

The CDC Medication Safety Program was awarded the Outstanding Community Partner of the Year Award for the agency’s ongoing leadership and commitment to keeping children safe from unintentional medication overdoses through the PROTECT Initiative and the Up and Away campaign.

And for addressing the importance of sun safety, Bayer Consumer Health’s Coppertone + BrightGuard Partnership won the Industry Leadership Award for Advancing Responsible Self-Care. To stress the importance of keeping the skin protected against potential harmful sun rays, Bayer Consumer Health and its Coppertone brand partnered with BrightGuard, the first automated sunscreen dispenser company, to install sunscreen dispensers across the country this summer, representing more than 375,000 sunscreen applications supplied to the public for free.

Hosting the gala were CHPA Educational Foundation Chair, Stephen Neumann, vice-president, consumer insights and business intelligence at Bayer Consumer Health, Anita Brikman, executive director of the CHPA Educational Foundation, and Mary Leonard, director of the CHPA Educational Foundation.

They were joined by some 250 attendees from CHPA member companies, healthcare organizations, and retailers. The gala’s major sponsors included Johnson & Johnson Consumer, Inc., AmerisourceBergen Corporation, Bayer Consumer Health, The Emerson Group, Facebook, and Pfizer Consumer Healthcare.

“The gala is always such a great event to highlight the good work of the foundation and we are thrilled to see participation continue to grow each year,” said Neumann. “It truly shows the level of support and dedication we have from donors across the industry.”