The Institute for Health Equity Research, Evaluation & Policy | | Celebrating 60 years of Community Health Centers | | This August, IHE is excited to raise up the theme of National Health Center Week 2025 "Celebrating the Past, Present, and Future: 60 years of improving our Nation's Health" by highlighting events and programming taking place at community health centers in Massachusetts this month. | |
This summer marks the 60th anniversary of the health center movement.
We celebrate the heroes of the past for their work and are proud of the modern-day heroes who have taken up the mantle.
In this issue, you will read about how you can get involved with or learn about the amazing work of health centers and health center collaborations supported by IHE:
- The Perinatal Data Learning Collaborative on tracking data to improve maternal health equity at health centers
- The IHE Mission Committee, focused on advancing health center-led science, has its Open House broadcast on September 8 at 7pm ET
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A recap of the pilot year of INSPIRE: Investing in Community-Led Scholarship in Community Health Centers
| Read on to learn more from IHE! | | Perinatal Data Learning Collaborative Series: Session 2 | |
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On August 20, 2025 the Perinatal Data Learning Collaborative Series Session 2 took place: Tracking What Counts: Perinatal Data Equity in Action at NeighborHealth. The webinar addressed how tracking perinatal data can assist with managing and ensuring perinatal health equity.
Dr. Christin Price, MD, Administrative Director of the Perinatal-Neonatal Quality Improvement Network (PNQIN), the statewide perinatal quality collaborative for Massachusetts, presented on the importance of maternal health data and health promotion priorities at PNQIN. She addressed how PNQIN came about and how every state has a required perinatal-neonatal quality improvement plan. Dr. Price’s presentation aimed to provide an overview of PNQN’s history and perinatal initiatives and identify opportunities for collaboration and engagement between PNQIN and Massachusetts CHCs.
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Moderated by Mimi Gardner, LICSW, MPH, Vice President and Chief Equity Officer of NeighborHealth, the presentation also included information about an example process for tracking and building data visualizations for maternal health equity data. This event was hosted by the Institute for Health Equity Research, Evaluation, and Policy, Inc.
Watch the Zoom recording and use Passcode: 67#^gBVS
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IHE Mission Committee Open House
September 8th | 7:00pm ET
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The IHE Mission Committee Open House will be broadcast on September 8, 2025. The event is moderated by IHE's executive director, Cheryl Clark, and features remarks from IHE Mission Committee members regarding health, wellness, and the significance of community health centers. Read the full biographies of our Mission Committee members in our June newsletter.
Ways to tune in:
Can't tune in live on September 8th at 7pm? The video recording of the broadcast will be available on the IHE webpage on September 9, 2025.
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Health Center Week
Youth and Family Programs
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National Health Center Week was August 3–9, 2025!
This year’s theme is “Celebrating The Past, Present, and Future: 60 years of improving our Nation's Health.”
As we celebrate our member health centers -especially during this 60th anniversary of the health center movement- IHE is highlighting the family and youth focused events that took place during Health Center Week at Massachusetts health centers this August.
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Back to School
August 5 | Harvard Street Neighborhood Health Center | Dorchester, MA 02121
Harvard Street Neighborhood Health Center will organized a “Back to School” event featuring storybook characters, an author/storytelling team, free book and school supply giveaways, and refreshments.
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Greater Lawrence Family Health Center Health Fair
August 6 | GLFHC | Lawrence, MA 01841
Now in its 3rd year, GLFHC invited community partners to join in this wonderful, family-friendly community event. The health fair featured free diabetes and blood pressure screenings, swim safety demonstrations, voter registration, food resources, health insurance registration, and much more. There were also free raffle prizes, face painting and ice cream.
Live on the Lake
August 6 | Community Health Programs | Pittsfield, MA 01201
In celebration of their 50th anniversary, staff of Community Health Programs (CHP) of the Berkshires brought CHP and the community together by sponsoring and hosting "Live on the Lake." Attendees had the opportunity to win prizes, get their face painted, and celebrate with CHP!
Greater Lawrence Family Health Center Breakfast at The Center
August 8 | GLFHC | Lawrence, MA 01841
GLFHC hosted a breakfast at The Center, a place where seniors, families and the community gather for programs and other events. In addition to breakfast, some of their clinicians/nurses hosted a presentation on nutrition. The presentation was in both English and Spanish.
Kennedy Community Health 5K Walk & Run
August 9 | Kennedy Community Health Center | Worcester, MA 01604
Community members were invited to join as a team or an individual. A T-shirt was included with registration and timing was provided for the 5K run which was stroller friendly.
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Social Saturday at Codman Square Farmers Market
August 9 | Codman Square Health Center | Dorchester, MA 02124
Codman Square Health Center invited the community to join for Social Saturday at the Codman Square Farmers Market -- in celebration of National Health Center Week! They took over the weekly summer market with events, important health information, healthy treats, and giveaways. They collaborated with their Recovery Services Team to offer health screenings and educational materials, blood pressure tests, nutrition information and demonstrations, financial and insurance information, new patient enrollment, and Recovery and Sexual Health educational information. They also had lots of free giveaways, snacks -featuring empanadas from Fresh Food Generation- balloons, face painting, and chair massages. There was also the regular Farmers Market vendors selling their produce and crafts. The event was free and open to the public.
| | INSPIRE: Investing in Community-Led Scholarship in Community Health Centers | | |
INSPIRE Pilot Year In Review: August marks the close of the pilot year of INSPIRE: Investing in Community-Led Scholarship in Community Health Centers, a collaborative program between Codman Square Health Center, Brockton Neighborhood Health Center, Harvard Medical School's Office for Culture and Community Engagement (OCCE), and supported by the Institute for Health Equity Research, Evaluation & Policy.
INSPIRE is about reparations to support workforce scholarship in health centers and has both a professional and youth component. The program seeks to address systemic racial inequities affecting communities that are descendant of enslavement in the United States by investing in innovation, scholarship and advocacy at local community health centers and among local youth.
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INSPIRE Youth Scholars explored and prepared for careers in health equity during INSPIRE's pilot year, January - August 2025. Cohort one's program closed out at Codman Square Health Center (CSHC) on August 19th, the last day of their summer internships. Participants received remarks from Michael Curry, President and CEO of the Mass League, and Guy Fish, CEO of CSHC, Carl Joseph, Youth Development Manager at CSHC, and Dalwin Corcino, Workforce Program Manager at the Mass League.
IHE is so proud of the Youth Scholars who not only completed summer internships but also completed a winter-spring curriculum of racial trauma informed yoga sessions, with Mandela Yoga Project, and policy advocacy workshops delivered by thought leaders in the field of Health Equity.
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INSPIRE Professional Scholars
Between January and June 2025, the participating health center practitioner-scholars leaned into building community and capacity for health center scholarship. These scholars, who are from Codman Square Health Center (Jennifer Cox and Minnetta Brown) and Brockton Neighborhood Health Center (Wadezah McCullough and Patricia Neal) cultivated personal wellness practices with instruction from Mandela Yoga Project and developed advocacy skills through networking and policy advocacy workshops.
Additionally, the scholars designed their own projects with support and guidance from their health center, other professional scholars, and IHE and HMS OCCE program staff. Each program was designed to support their health center and surrounding community with projects ranging from running voter engagement sessions, sharing mindfulness and self-care practices gleaned from the MYP yoga sessions, and advancing ongoing research to understand the effects of racism and racial discrimination on youth in the community and what youth perceive healthcare organizations can do to support their health and wellbeing related to these experiences.
INSPIRE is funded by The Harvard & the Legacy of Slavery: Reparative Partnership Grant Program.
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Jennifer Cox: INSPIRE Scholar and Codman Square Health Center Hero
Congratulations to Jennifer Cox for recognition as a 2025 Health Center Hero at Codman Square Health Center. IHE is pleased to highlight her excellent achievements!
Read more on Codman Square Health Center's LinkedIn.
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| Caring Health Center celebrates 30 years! | | |
Founded in Springfield's South End, Caring Health Center started providing essential medical care over 30 years ago and that commitment keeps growing!
Caring Health Center offers a wide range of services, including dental care, behavioral health services, WIC, and pharmacy services at various locations throughout the city.
Tania Barber, President and CEO of Caring Health Center, provided remarks about the center's commitment to community in a news report with Mass Appeal on August 27, 2025.
Watch the news report video by Mass Appeal.
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IHE July Feature
In July, IHE marked the close of our second year and we shared our accomplishments in the past twelve months.
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We recapped that IHE supports member community health centers to advance health center-led science, an approach that seeks to ensure research, evaluation, and policy-relevant dissemination is led by and builds on the expertise of the 50 health centers members in Massachusetts and the communities we serve.
IHE supports the tireless work of Massachusetts health centers that advance evidence-based, education, quality improvement practice, health center collaboration, and policy recommendations to attain optimal health for all.
Read the full feature.
| | | The Institute for Health Equity Research, Evaluation, and Policy | |
In 2023, The Massachusetts League of Community Health Centers (Mass League) created the Institute for Health Equity Research, Evaluation, and Policy, Inc. (IHE), a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization designed to support Health Center-led Science driven by community health centers.
IHE convenes communities and supports the scientific infrastructure, implementation, program evaluation and training needed to identify and sustain the most effective strategies for attaining equity in health and healthcare, as defined by those with lived experience of health inequities.
Learn more about IHE on our webpage of the Mass League website and on our LinkedIn page.
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