Impacting Health Disparities in Urban Communities: Preparing Future Healthcare Providers for “Neighborhood-Engaged Care” Through a Community Engagement Course Intervention

Abstract

It is well known that health disparities exist and that a significant majority of patients who suffer disproportionately from them are lower income, non-white residents of dense, and diverse urban neighborhoods. It is our belief that factors hindering the reduction of health disparities in these neighborhoods are a lack of a framework and preparation needed to engage these communities in identifying specific health care needs. This paper describes one curricular intervention, a graduate level community engagement course, developed within an academic medical center located in an urban setting, that demonstrates promise in effecting change in the extent to which clinicians are able to engage communities and practice “neighborhood-engaged care” with the central goal of mitigating disparities.