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Center for Community Health Programs
Columbia University Medical Center’s Center for Community Health Partnerships believes that eliminating health care disparities in the United States is a compelling national goal. Its various programs and projects are working to eliminate these health care disparities by focusing on three major areas:

• Supporting access to quality health care
• Developing partnerships with communities
• Preparing a culturally competent workforce

In addition to these major components, CCHP is researching health care disparities in minority populations through the Columbia Center for the Health of Urban Minorities and assisting in the educational mission of Columbia University Medical Center schools through its Curriculum Committee on Cultural Competency.

The following is a list of their services:

• 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.

New York Presbyterian Hospital, Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center- Breast Cancer, Cancer Outreach, and Cancer Support programs and services

(http://www.ccc.columbia.edu/bcs.html)