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"These women-focused programs will integrate, coordinate and strengthen linkages between health and social service agencies in communities to provide comprehensive, seamless care to women across their life span," said Secretary Shalala. "They underscore our continuing commitment to empower communities to reduce the fragmentation of services and access barriers that women encounter when trying to find quality health care."

The CCOE program will provide recognition and funding for community-based programs that unite promising approaches in women's health across six components: health services delivery, particularly preventive services, training for lay workers and professional health providers, community-based research, public education and/or outreach, leadership development for women, and technical assistance to other communities that want to replicate the program. The CCOEs will work with women in the community to create programs relevant to local needs.

The CCOE program is modeled in part after the department's National Centers of Excellence in Women's Health (CoEs), sponsored by the Office on Women's Health (OWH), at 15 academic medical centers across the United States. "The success of the CoE program taught us that we really can change the way health care is delivered to women by integrating all of the important aspects of clinical services, health education and research into one institution," said Wanda Jones, Dr.P.H., deputy assistant secretary for health (women's health) and director of the HHS Office on Women's Health. "It is now important to offer that kind of support to the community hospital, clinic or local health care center to better meet the needs of women in underserved neighborhoods."

"The CCOEs are an integral component of the Health Resources and Services Administration's (HRSA) goal to achieve 100 percent access and zero health disparities," said Marilyn Hughes Gaston, M.D., Assistant Surgeon General and HRSA associate administrator for primary health care. "These model programs, based upon partnerships between providers, researchers, educators and underserved women, will strengthen our national safety net," Gaston added.

The first three five-year cooperative agreement awards of $150,000 each will be made on Sept. 30 to the Northeast Missouri Health Council (Kirksville, Mo.); St. Barnabas Hospital and Healthcare System in the Bronx (New York, N.Y.); and Mariposa Community Health Center (Nogales, Ariz.).

Missouri
The CCOE in Missouri will develop a model rural-based integrated health care, education and research center targeting Hispanic women in eight medically underserved counties in northeast Missouri. The Northeast Missouri Health Council will organize a collaboration of local health care providers, educators, researchers and consumers to offer lifelong health services to women. The Missouri program will include a domestic violence resource service and an outpatient community mental health center.

New York
The St. Barnabas Hospital and Healthcare System in New York City will lead an alliance of healthcare providers, academic institutions and local organizations to overcome barriers to health care access and reduce fragmentation of services, particularly for uninsured women in the adjacent Bronx communities. The alliance will undertake a consensus building process, and will develop and test market educational strategies to better reach underserved women. It will also offer an English-as-a-second-language service for the large numbers of local Hispanic women.

Arizona
The CCOE in Nogales, Ariz., will be a rural-based program targeting Mexican American women. With the Mariposa Community Health Center as its base, the CCOE will strengthen women-focused health promotion and education to empower local women to take charge of their health care, will strengthen the existing comprehensive health services network in Santa Cruz County, and will focus on the role of Promotoras (lay health workers) for community mobilization and neighborhood outreach. The Promotora program was launched in 1991 through a federal grant from the Health Resources and Services Administration.

The department's Office on Women's Health plans to fund three or more new programs every year until a total of 15 awards have been made. Every effort will be made to ensure that each region of the country has either a National Community Center of Excellence in Women's Health or a National Center of Excellence in Women's Health.

The CCOE program is created and funded by the department's Office on Women's Health, the Office of Minority and Women's Health in HRSA's Bureau of Primary Health Care (BPHC), and the HHS Office of Minority Health. The program is part of the department's goal to eliminate racial, ethnic and gender disparities in health status.

For more information on the National Community Centers of Excellence in Women's Health, visit www.4woman.gov.

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