About Us

Faith-based organizations are becoming increasingly important agents in public health initiatives, especially in eliminating racial and ethnic health disparities. Partnerships between faith based and health care organizations can create unique opportunities for health promotion in the community while providing health care organizations access to valuable feedback and input from community members.

The Center for Promoting Collaboration between Faith-based Organizations and Health Care Organizations to Eliminate Disparity is a resource for organizations interested in exploring these partnerships. On this website you will find:

• Resources for building successful partnerships
• Examples of successful partnerships and programs
• A forum to connect with other organizations working to eliminate disparit

Background

The National Center for Minority Health and Health Disparities (NCMHD) has worked closely with the Health and Human Services Center for Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships (The Partnership Center) to promote minority health and to reduce and ultimately eliminate health disparities.

The NCMHD selected Bronx Health REACH to spearhead a national effort to assist community and faith-based organizations in establishing effective partnerships with health care providers to eliminate health disparities. In 2008, Bronx Health REACH convened a roundtable conference with experts in medicine, research, community outreach and faith-based initiatives. Participants discussed lessons learned from their varied perspectives working on faith-based health collaborations, and identified research issues which would be helpful in identifying best practices. This website is the result of that collaboration.

Bronx Health REACH

The Bronx Health REACH Coalition was formed in 1999 to eliminate racial and ethnic disparities in health outcomes in diabetes in African American and Latino communities in the southwest Bronx. The Bronx Health REACH Coalition, led by the Institute for Family Health, includes over 60 community-based organizations, health care providers, faith-based institutions, a public interest law firm, and housing and social service agencies. Its research partner is the New York Academy of Medicine (NYAM).

The goals of the Bronx Health REACH Coalition are to serve as a national model of community empowerment that demonstrates how to build healthier communities by promoting healthy life-style behaviors; increasing awareness of racial and ethnic disparities in how health care is provided; identifying and promoting models of accessible, respectful, culturally sensitive and high quality care; and advocating for policy changes to improve healthcare access and the other community and environmental factors contributing to the better health of people of color.

For more information visit www.BronxHealthREACH.org.

Institute for Family Health

The Institute for Family Health is a federally qualified community health center network, founded in 1983 and dedicated to developing innovative ways to provide primary health services to medically underserved populations based on the family practice model of care. The Institute currently operates 17 full-time health centers and nine part-time sites in Manhattan, the Bronx, and the Mid-Hudson Valley of New York State, serving 90,000 patients annually. All Institute centers provide primary and preventive health care services to adults and children of all ages, and are designated as Patient Centered Medical Homes by the National Committee on Quality Assurance (NCQA). The Institute’s health centers have used electronic health records since 2002, and the organization has received several national awards for its use of health information technology to improve health services for disadvantaged communities.

The Institute has developed and implemented a number of health promotion programs aimed at improving the health of underserved communities. In 1999, the Institute founded the Bronx Health REACH Coalition. Since then the coalition has worked to eliminate racial and ethnic disparities in health outcomes in diabetes in African American and Latino communities in the southwest Bronx. More recently, Bronx Health REACH has served as a national resource center and received designation from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in 2007 as a Center of Excellence in Eliminating Disparities (CEED).

For more information about the Institute for Family Health, visit www.institute2000.org.