Collaborating With Inland Empire Communities to Improve Health Outcomes
About the Center for Healthy Communities
A Community-Engaged Research Center for Inland Southern California
The Center for Healthy Communities (CHC) was founded at the University of California, Riverside (UCR) School of Medicine to promote and seek funding for innovative community-engaged research that improves the health of communities in Inland Southern California.
In 2013, the School of Medicine leadership announced plans to begin building community-based and population health research as central tenants to its mission in the community. In May 2014 the center began building bridges with community groups, reaching out to a variety of UCR faculty, especially those in the health-related disciplines including sociology, anthropology, economics, psychology, education and political science, re-establishing relationships with colleagues at UCLA and Rand, and hiring new faculty and staff for the center.
Our Location
The Center for Healthy Communities is located at 3333 14th Street in Riverside. The location is a few blocks from the UCR Health offices at Citrus Tower. All of the CHC core faculty and staff are housed in the location, allowing for dedicated collaboration and community building.
About the UCR School of Medicine
The UC Riverside School of Medicine was founded in 2013 with the goal of improving the health of Inland Empire of Southern California.
The school is innovative in several respects, seeking to to enroll and train more doctors from racial and ethnic backgrounds that are under-represented in medicine in part through a unique admissions process that emphasizes four specific attributes: socio-economic or educational disadvantage, non-native English speaking, completing high school in Inland Southern California, and/or the first-in-family to complete a bachelor’s degree.
The medical school also requires that students have longitudinal three-year community-based primary care clinical experiences; uses a curriculum emphasizing care for the underserved, prevention, public health, chronic disease management, and cultural competence; and offers scholarships to students who agree to practice in the Inland Empire, one of the most medically underserved areas in California.
About the Department of Social Medicine, Population, and Public Health
The Department of Social Medicine, Population, and Public Health (SMPPH) is the home department for the Center for Healthy Communities. The chair of the department is Mark Wolfson, Ph.D.
About UC Riverside
The University of California, Riverside (UCR) is one of the 10 University of California campuses. Located about 60 miles east of downtown Los Angeles, the campus is at the heart of the growing and ethnically diverse region known as the Inland Empire. The environment of UCR is one in which diversity is highly valued as a cornerstone for both education and research, and the university consistently excelled in rankings related to ethnic diversity, social mobility of students, and responsiveness to community needs.