History of Community Based Health Centers

The National Association of Community Health Centers represents the nation’s community health care delivery system. NACHC is a nonprofit organization, providing advocacy, education, training, and technical assistance to health centers in support of their mission to provide quality health care to underserved populations (NACHC, 2009). It was founded in 1971, after the nation’s first “neighborhood health centers,” in Mount Bayou, Mississippi and Boston, Massachusetts, were approved for funding by the federal government in 1965.

H. Jack Geiger, a physician and civil rights activist, founded these first CHCs after studying the Community Oriented Primary Care (COPC) model developed in South Africa by Drs. Sidney and Emily Kark (NACHC, 2009). COPC integrates the clinical practice of medicine with public health to involve communities in addressing the biological, social and physical aspects of the environment that are the primary determinants of health status. Geiger was able to take advantage of President Johnson’s “War on Poverty” (NACHC, 2009) by applying for funds from the Federal Office of Economic Opportunity to implement the South African model for rural and urban medically underserved communities in the US (NACHC, 2009). There are now over 1,200 community health centers in the United States, serving over 18 10 million people. The American model that evolved from Dr. Geiger’s vision is to use local resources with federal funds to provide affordable, accessible and quality healthcare (NCAHC, 2009). One Love proposes to revitalize the original COPC strategy, using its clinical services as a focal point for community participation and empowerment to solve problems that impact health in West Oakland.