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America’s Health Centers owe their existence to a remarkable turn of events in U.S. history, and to a few determined community health and civil rights activists working in low-income communities during the 1960s. Millions of Americans, living in inner-city neighborhoods and rural areas throughout the country suffered from deep poverty and a desperate need for health care. Among those determined to seek change was H. Jack Geiger, then a young doctor and civil rights activist. Geiger had studied in South Africa and witnessed how a pioneering community health model had wrought astonishing improvements in public health. In the 1960s, as President Johnson's declared "War on Poverty" began to ripple through America, the first proposal for the U.S. version of a Community Health Center sprung to life at the Office of Economic Opportunity. Funding was approved in 1965 for the first two neighborhood health center demonstration projects, one in Boston, Massachusetts, and the other in Mound Bayou, Mississippi.  You can also read more about the history of the health center movement, and learn about the pioneers who helped make it happen, at an online exhibit on global health launched by the National Library of Medicine. 

Today, 17 million people in over 6,000 communities use health centers as their health care home. Every day, health centers meet escalating health needs and bring good health to needy communities, without regard to family income, health insurance status, race, culture or health condition. In communities fortunate enough to have a health center, fewer babies die, emergency room lines are shorter and people live longer, healthier lives. The remarkable success of health centers and their top performance rating by the White House Office of Management and Budget (visit www.expectmore.gov) has garnered broad bipartisan support among federal, state, and local policy-makers.

Both the Institute of Medicine and the General Accountability Office have recognized the nationwide network of health centers as effective models for reducing health disparities and for managing the care of people with chronic conditions such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and HIV. The American Academy of Family Physicians’ Robert Graham Center recently found that the total cost of care for health center patients is 41% lower annually than the total cost of care for individuals served by other providers. Health centers demonstrate that high-quality, continuous care to people and communities without adequate sources of health care can improve health outcomes, narrow health disparities, and generate significant savings to the health care system – up to $18 billion– while bringing much-needed economic benefits to the low income communities.

Expanding health centers can address the needs of the underserved across our nation and help transform our health care system. Health centers keep patients and communities healthy with cost-effective, regular primary and preventive care that reduces the need for hospitalizations, emergency rooms, and specialty referrals. Health centers are an excellent public investment that generates substantial benefits for patients, communities, insurers, and governments – indeed, for all of America.

02-05-2008

About America’s Health Centers (68kb)