National Health Center Week (NHCW), August 6 – 12, is an annual celebration with the goal of raising awareness about the mission and accomplishments of America’s health centers over the past five decades.
FOCUS DAY • Agricultural Worker Health
Health centers serve more than one million migrant and seasonal agricultural workers, about 20% of the estimated U.S. total.
Peak Vista serves a significant rural population. We have four health centers that reach our rural neighbors: the Health Centers at Divide, Strasburg, and Limon, as well as the Dental Center at Flagler. Last year, these health centers served 6,695 patients, 8% of our total patient population.
Learn more about this focus day.
Read NACHC’s blog post: “Agricultural Workers and The Health Center Movement”
PEAK VISTA'S PARTICIPATION
As part of this focus day, Peak Vista is reaching out to our rural patients with an open house at the Health Center at Strasburg. After a day of back-to-school physicals, the health center is opening its doors to the community for snacks, tours of the health center, and a chance to chat with the team.
Photos of the event will be available on our NHCW webpage.
CHC HISTORY • The Birth of CHCs
The CHC movement began in 1965 under President Lyndon B. Johnson’s administration as part of the War on Poverty. Services were brought into communities where needed most to address the transportation, economic, and sociocultural barriers impacting access to care. Drs. H Jack Geiger and Count D. Gibson Jr. led the way and founded the first two health centers in the nation: one in Massachusetts and one in Mississippi. Closer to home, the first health center west of the Mississippi opened in Denver in 1966. (1, 2)
Read NACHC’s blog post: “Health Centers Are Rooted in the Civil Rights Movement”
DAILY BOOK RECOMMENDATION
Out in the Rural – A Mississippi Health Center & Its War on Poverty
by Thomas J. Ward
“In Out in the Rural: A Mississippi Health Center and Its War on Poverty, historian Dr. Thomas J. Ward Jr., professor and chair of the History Department at Spring Hill College (Mobile, Alabama) explores the origins of the community health center movement through the story of the Tufts-Delta Health Center in Mound Bayou, Mississippi.”
