National Association of Community Health Centers Awarded 2005 Presidential Citation

Philadelphia, Pa., December 11, 2005 – The National Association of Community Health Centers (NACHC) was honored today with the American Public Health Association’s Presidential Citation in recognition of efforts to enhance and expand access to quality, community-responsive health care for America’s medically under-served and the uninsured. The award was presented here during APHA’s 133^rd Annual Meeting & Exposition.

The association joins the ranks of past presidential award winners such as Rosa Parks, Rosalynn Carter and Doctors Without Borders.

“We cannot stress enough how important community health centers are to the health of our most vulnerable citizens, and this organization’s daily work goes beyond the call of duty to keep those centers operational,” said APHA President Walter Tsou, MD, MPH. “Community health centers are critical to meeting the medical needs of people who would otherwise have no access to care.”

NACHC represents the nation’s network of more than 1,000 federally qualified health centers, which serve 15 million people through 5,000 sites located in all of the 50 states, Puerto Rico, the District of Columbia, the U.S. Virgin Islands and Guam.

Community health centers were established in the United States in 1964 as federally funded neighborhood clinics that provide care in under-served areas. About half of health center patients reside in rural areas, while the others live in economically depressed urban areas. The centers serve some of the nation’s most vulnerable residents: Almost 70 percent of patients live below the U.S. poverty level, 40 percent are uninsured and two-thirds of patients are from racial and ethnic minority groups.

In the battle against health disparities and infant mortality, some important headway has been made at the community health center level. And the national association works to ensure those health centers receive the support they need to stay open.

The group’s recent advocacy efforts include the release of a report that revealed nearly 1,000 low-income American counties lack community health centers. Twenty million people live in these counties, where 42 percent of residents are low income and 3 million of them are completely uninsured. They represent 10 percent of the nation’s poor and 8 percent of the uninsured, yet they live in communities that are most likely to need a health center and do not have one.

Through its successful advocacy and communications efforts spanning more than 30 years, NACHC has earned broad bipartisan support among federal, state and local policy-makers. NACHC has worked hard to promote the mission and accomplishments of health centers and to secure the federal support and resources that will protect and strengthen existing health centers and allow them to expand their reach.

The association is also a leader in building coalitions with other non-governmental organizations and government agencies in efforts to further access to health care services like enrolling low-income seniors in an affordable prescription drug program, or to advocate for policies that both strengthen and preserve health care safety net programs such as Medicaid.