Community
Health care begins long before a patient enters the exam room, and opportunities for effective care without brick-and-mortar are vast. By shedding the constraints of the past and utilizing our unique makeup, we’ve created a multifaceted, community-based approach to preventive health.
Value-based care
Our responsibility is to improve lives through education and service. Through our interprofessional degree programs we prepare graduates to provide value-based care. With an all-hands-on-deck approach, and in collaboration with partners across the state, we’re mobilizing health professionals and equipping community members to take personal responsibility for their own health.
"Health care is my passion. At the end of my life, I want to say that I have helped a country, city, community or village shift from poor to quality health care.”
Eunice Fafiyebi ‘17
School of Public Health graduate
Strategic partnerships and initiatives
Is it possible to shift an entire culture of bad health toward healthy living? We think so. It’s why we’re creating and implementing programs to make lasting change and turn preventable diseases into history.
Coastal Bend Health Education Center
Coastal Bend Health Education Center advances the knowledge and skills of health care professionals, students and the community through partnerships in education, research and technology.
Healthy South Texas
Healthy South Texas brings together experts from medicine, nursing, pharmacy, biomedical science, public health, architecture and extension to engage families, promote behavior change and improve quality of medical care and disease outcomes throughout a 27-county region spanning South Texas.
Global Institute for Hispanic Health
Global Institute for Hispanic Health improves Hispanic participation in clinical trials. In partnership with Driscoll Children’s Hospital, the program considers the special needs of this population such as genetics, lifestyle, and risk factors while developing new drugs and life-saving therapies.
A&M Rural and Community Health Institute
The A&M Rural and Community Health Institute (ARCHI) is a health extension center offering programs that promote safe, effective health care practices. ARCHI serves as a bridge for health care professionals and their organizations with academic centers, policymakers and researchers to improve the quality and safety of patient care.
Global Institute for Hispanic Health
Global Institute for Hispanic Health improves Hispanic participation in clinical trials. In partnership with Driscoll Children’s Hospital, the program considers the special needs of this population such as genetics, lifestyle, and risk factors while developing new drugs and life-saving therapies.
A&M Rural and Community Health Institute
The A&M Rural and Community Health Institute is a health extension center offering programs that promote safe, effective health care practices. ARCHI serves as a bridge for health care professionals and their organizations with academic centers, policymakers and researchers to improve the quality and safety of patient care.
Empowering individuals
Ricardo Cantu lived with hepatitis C for 20 years before a cure was developed. However, the cost for a full course of the medication would cost him $96,000. As a single parent of two teenagers, he knew he needed to do all he could to get the cure, and the Medication Assistance Program through Texas A&M Healthy South Texas came through. Now, Cantu is hepatitis free, is here for his children and living a longer life.
Explore Healthy South TexasOur impact in Texas
We’re creating an effective community-based model for better health. Our network crosses all sectors for the greatest impact, from hospital systems and private corporations to counties, municipalities and school districts.
Our progress to date:
total contacts
potential savings over a lifetime
saved in medical costs
Closing the mental health care gap
Texas has a need for mental health care greater than any other state. More than 10 million Texas residents live in mental health care professional shortage areas. The School of Public Health is helping professors and students across Texas A&M to bring telehealth resources to patients and expand research opportunities where it’s needed most.
Explore Telehealth CounselingA two-fold mission
Boots-on-the-ground programs don’t just help patients, they offer unique opportunities to educate the next generation of health care leaders. When students become part of this effort they are exposed to new patient populations, different professional perspectives and a realistic understanding of the importance of all the health sciences working as one unit, for one purpose.
Serving the homeless while earning credit hours, 20 years and counting.
Martha’s Clinic was started by medical students Eric Wilke and Eric Beshires, who saw a need for better health care for the indigent population in Central Texas. Wilke and Beshires started taking weekly blood pressures at Martha’s Kitchen, a homeless shelter. Soon demand grew for more extensive medical care than they were able to provide on their own.
Gaining interprofessional education while treating underserved patients’ health needs.
Students at the College of Dentistry thrive on clinical experience with real patients at the Agape Clinic nearby. It was a perfect match, not just because it was just five blocks away, but because the students learn about the importance of having all of their patients’ health care needs met.
Decreasing the number of people with undiagnosed diabetes, one shopper at a time.
Perhaps the last thing you would expect to find in a South Texas flea market—among the produce, old clothes and high-end cowboy boots—is a booth where you can find out if you have diabetes. But that’s exactly what professors and master’s degree students at the School of Public Health in McAllen have set up in the town of Alamo, Texas.
Serving the homeless while earning credit hours, 20 years and counting.
Martha's Clinic was started by medical students Eric Wilke and Eric Beshires, who saw a need for better health care for the indigent population in Central Texas. Wilke and Beshires started taking weekly blood pressures at Martha's Kitchen, a homeless shelter. Soon demand grew for more extensive medical care than they were able to provide on their own.
Gaining interprofessional education while treating underserved patients' health needs.
Students at the College of Dentistry thrive on clinical experience with real patients at the Agape Clinic nearby. It was a perfect match, not just because it was just five blocks away, but because the students learn about the importance of having all of their patients' health care needs met.
Decreasing the number of people with undiagnosed diabetes, one shopper at a time.
Perhaps the last thing you would expect to find in a South Texas flea market—among the produce, old clothes and high-end cowboy boots—is a booth where you can find out if you have diabetes. But that’s exactly what professors and master’s degree students at the School of Public Health in McAllen have set up in the town of Alamo, Texas.