Mobilizing the Community for Better Health: What the Rest of America Can Learn from Northern Manhattan

"As we move to reform our health system, lessons from the Northern Manhattan Community Voices Program will be invaluable—lessons in collaboration, partnership, mutual respect, and learning."-David Satcher, Former U.S. Surgeon General And Assistant Secretary Of Health

From 1999 to 2009, the Northern Manhattan Community Voices Collaborative put Columbia University and its Medical Center in touch with surrounding community organizations and churches to facilitate access to primary care, nutritional improvement, and smoking cessation, and to broker innovative ways to access healthcare and other social services. This unlikely partnership and the relationships it forged reaffirms the wisdom of joining "town and gown" to improve a community's well-being.

Coauthored by staff members of participating organizations, this volume shares the successes, failures, and obstacles of implementing such a vast and delicate program. A representative of Alianza Dominicana, for example, one of the country's largest groups settling new immigrants, speaks to the value of community-based organizations in ridding a neighborhood of crime, facilitating access to health insurance, and navigating the healthcare system. The editors outline the beginnings and infrastructure of the collaboration and the relationship between leaders that fueled positive outcomes. Their portrait demonstrates how grassroots solutions can create productive dialogues that help resolve difficult issues.

"The story of the Northern Manhattan Community Voices Collaborative contains lessons for health practitioners, public policy experts, and all who care about the health of underserved communities. The ambitions of the project were huge, and not everything worked as planned or was sustained after initial funding expired. Yet the vision of Community Voices, with all its preventive and treatment components, represents the best of American health care. The lessons shared should be of value to all who wish to improve the health of the public."-Steven A. Schroeder, University Of California, San Francisco, And Former President, The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation

Allan J. Formicola is dean emeritus of the Columbia University College of Dental Medicine and founder of the university's Center for Community Health Partnerships, which has now merged with the Center for Family and Community Medicine. Over the past two decades, he and his colleagues have developed far-reaching programs to improve general and oral health care for underserved communities.

Lourdes Hernandez-Cordero is an assistant professor of clinical socio-medical sciences at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health. She directs the Center for Youth Violence Prevention's CLIMB (City Life is Moving Bodies) project, which works with northern Manhattan-based organizations to promote youth development, physical activity, stewardship, and social capital through community mobilization.

Allan J. Formicola is dean emeritus of the Columbia University College of Dental Medicine and founder of the university's Center for Community Health Partnerships, which has now merged with the Center for Family and Community Medicine. Over the past two decades, he and his colleagues have developed far reaching programs to improve general and oral health care for underserved communities.

Lourdes Hernandez-Cordero is an assistant professor of clinical sociomedical sciences at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health. She directs the Center for Youth Violence Prevention's CLIMB (City Life is Moving Bodies) project, which works with northern Manhattan-based organizations to promote youth development, physical activity, stewardship, and social capital through community mobilization.