Mobilizing the Community for Better Health: What the Rest of America Can Learn from Northern Manhattan

For the past ten years, The Northern Manhattan Community Voices Collaborative has put Columbia University and its hospitals in touch with surrounding community organizations and churches to facilitate vaccines, dental care, and nutritional improvement, along with other forms of healthcare and support. As the nation begins to recognize the importance of prevention, this unlikely yet enduring partnership reaffirms the wisdom of joining "town and gown" to improve the well-being of a community.

Each chapter in this volume is authored by a staff member of a participating institution, and altogether they share the successes, failures, and stumbling blocks of implementing such a vast and delicate program. A representative of Alianza Dominicana, for example, one of the country's largest groups for settling new immigrants, speaks to the value of community-based organizations in ridding a neighborhood of crime-a vital step in the plan to move forward. Allan Formicola and Lourdes Hernandez-Cordero outline the beginnings and infrastructure of the collaboration and the relationship between leaders that fueled its positive outcomes. Their portrait demonstrates how grassroots solutions can mutually benefit communities as well as institutions and yield productive dialogues about difficult issues.