| The Community Pediatrics
Program aims to improve the health and well being of the children
in Washington Heights/ Inwood by enlarging the focus of care from
one child to all children in the community. The program challenges
the traditional methods of resident education and service by creating
meaningful academic and community-based partnerships and by developing
population health initiatives that address major threats to children's
health.
Below are brief descriptions of our major programs,
followed by more detailed descriptions, including outcomes. The
Community Pediatrics Program is a collaborative effort between New
York Presbyterian Hospital, Columbia University, and the Washington
Heights/Inwood communities. In all cases, programs are led by Columbia
faculty. In many cases NYP Hospital plays a major role in funding
and managing the programs.
- CHALK (Choosing Healthy & Active
Lifestyles for Kids) Center for Best Practices aims to
reduce the prevalence of childhood obesity and its associated
morbidity in Northern Manhattan (with a focus on school-aged children),
and to promote a culture and create an environment in which healthy
lifestyles are integral to the lives of all children.
- Health Education Adult Literacy
(HEAL) Program aims to improve the health literacy
of the population served by developing culturally responsive health
education materials using the basic tenets of health literacy.
In addition, the program trains pediatric providers, community
workers, and volunteers to address this issue.
- Health Leads, a national program,
works to break the link between poverty and poor health by mobilizing
Columbia undergraduate volunteers to provide sustained public
health interventions in partnership with the medical center, university,
and community organizations. Health Leads volunteers address patients’
unmet resource needs systematically, as a standard element of
patient care.
- Lang Youth Medical Program
is a medical pipeline program that prepares middle and high school
students from the Washington Heights and Inwood communities for
careers in biomedical science and medicine. The program is in
its eighth year and serves approximately 70 children and their
families.
- Reach Out and Read Program
is a national program that incorporates early literacy into pediatric
primary care for children aged 6 months to 5 years. Our program,
established in 1997, has enabled over 200 pediatricians at CUMC
to “prescribe” and give out over 100,000 books to
45,000 economically disadvantaged children, many of who are from
linguistically isolated families.
- Turn2 Us is a school-based
mental health prevention program, currently in two schools in
Northern Manhattan that strives to enable youth to internalize
healthy lifestyles through a variety of physical and psycho-educational
preventive interventions.
- WIN (Washington Heights and Inwood Network)
for Asthma Program is a community-based intervention
to reduce childhood asthma for families in Washington Heights
/Inwood.
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Training: All
pediatric residents receive extensive training in Community
Pediatrics throughout the 3 years of their residency. Using
a service-learning model, the next generation of pediatric leaders
is taught core concepts in community health, cultural competency,
and legislative advocacy. In addition, we support a Community
Pediatrics Track for residents with a specific interest in this
area, mentoring them through their residency to develop community
pediatric and public health skills while completing a project
with one of our aforementioned programs.
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