Rafael Antonio Lantigua

Rafael Lantigua, M.D. is the Associate Dean for Community Service, Director of the Office of Community Service Programs, and Professor of Medicine at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons. Since coming to Columbia in 1980, he has a distinguished record of working to improve the health of aging minorities and working to advance community partnerships and community based participatory research. He was the driving force behind CALME, the Columbia Center for the Active Life of Minority Elders, which supported research to reduce health disparities affecting minority elders and established an important bridge between Columbia researchers and the neighboring community. Dr. Lantigua also helped start the Columbia Center for the Health of Urban Minorities to shift community based-research from studies for the community to studies with the community