Center for Healthy Communities announces 2012 Health Promotion Program Award recipients

The Wright State University Boonshoft School of Medicine Center for Healthy Communities announced the 2012 recipients of its annual Health Promotion Program Awards. Montgomery County Care and Five Rivers Health Centers were selected in the established program and new program categories respectively. Awards will be presented at the Center for Healthy Communities Community Advisory Board meeting on July 11.

Since 1997, the Center for Healthy Communities has invited the community to submit nominations for its annual Health Promotion Program Awards. These awards recognize community-based health promotion programs that serve the citizens of the greater Dayton area. To be eligible for the award, programs must have been developed and implemented by two or more organizations and involve the collaboration of two or more groups or organizations. The Center recognizes both a new program and an established program each year.

Montgomery County Care is a pilot health care services program that provides a cost-effective primary care medical home for eligible adults who live in Montgomery County, Ohio. Administered by CareSource, a leading nonprofit, public-sector managed care company, Montgomery County Care was developed out of recommendations from the Montgomery County Health Care Safety Net Task Force and is funded through an award from the Montgomery County Human Services Levy. Care is provided by the Community Health Centers of Greater Dayton, Five Rivers Health Centers and private practice primary care providers.

Five Rivers Health Centers opened in May 2011 as a medical home for low-income patients in Dayton by providing both primary and various specialty care services. Medical residents and fellows from the Boonshoft School of Medicine see patients at three centers in Dayton: the Family Health Center, the Medical Surgical Health Center and the Center for Women’s Health.

“Both of these organizations are deserving of recognition for their work in the Dayton community,” said Katherine L. Cauley, Ph.D., director of the Center for Healthy Communities. “They have clearly demonstrated their commitment to helping underserved residents through medical home programs, and are improving care for the patients who need it most.”

The Wright State University Center for Healthy Communities is a community-academic partnership committed to improving the health and well being of the community, educating its health professionals and serving as a force for change. The center began in 1991 as Partners for Community Health Development, and became a formal organization in 1994. In 2011, the center became a program of the Center for Global Health in the Wright State University Boonshoft School of Medicine Department of Community Health.

For more information about the Health Promotion Program Awards, visit med.wright.edu/chc/events/healthpromotion.