Programs

The Center for Community Health Partnerships serves as a catalyst for creating academic-community partnerships that improve the health of the community and for developing new knowledge in community-participatory research to better understand health disparities.

Formally created in March 2002, the Center represents Columbia’s commitment to working with community-based organizations in northern Manhattan in a unified manner. Its five grant-funded initiatives encompass various approaches to understanding and reducing health care disparities both in northern Manhattan and nationally. Among these are:

Thelma C. Davidson Adair Medical & Dental Center, a world-class medical and dental center in the heart of Harlem. It provides primary medical and dental services to all ages with an emphasis on family medicine/dentistry and senior citizen’s health needs.

Pipeline, Profession & Practice: Community-Based Dental Education, an initiative encompassing 15 dental schools designed to help increase access to dental care for underserved populations. It achieves this goal by establishing community-based clinical education programs in off-site facilities; revising dental school curricula to prepare students for community-based practice experiences; and by implementing programs to increase recruitment and retention of underrepresented minority and low-income students in dental schools.

Columbia Center for the Health of Urban Minorities, a research center financed by the National Institutes of Health designed to advance minority health issues and support community-participatory research by partnering with community organizations and reducing access barriers to health care. Its work focuses on five distinct research cores that include cardiovascular health, mental health, diabetes prevention, injury prevention, and access to health care due to a lack of health insurance.

Curriculum Development Committee for Cultural Competency, a Columbia University Medical Center initiative designed to increase the understanding of health professionals on the roles that stereotyping and bias play in the health care of racial and ethnic minorities.

Northern Manhattan Community Voices Collaborative, a working collaboration of 32 community-based organizations, medical institutions and safety net providers who over the last six years have facilitated a wide range of health promotion and disease prevention programs. Programs include Salud a su Alcance, a care coordinated program; Asthma Basics for Children, an asthma management and prevention program; Healthy Choices, a nutrition and exercise program; Northern Manhattan Start Right Coalition, a childhood immunization program; the American Legacy Smoking Cessation Program; and the Community DentCare Network, a program that increases access to oral health care in northern Manhattan. The Collaborative is currently focused on advancing the work of Community Health Outreach Workers.