About

Welcome to the Center for Community Health Integration 

The Center for Community Health Integration (CHI) conducts collaborative research and development to advance community health and integrated, personalized health care. We work with colleagues across multiple levels of a complex system to develop a shared understanding of the effects of social, environmental, and human systems, and to use that understanding to improve the health of individuals, vulnerable populations, and communities.
 
Building on three decades of work with partners in Cleveland and around the world, this new center is in an early phase of making and reinforcing connections that challenge problems often perceived as intractable. We are investing in relationships, analytical capacity, and novel ideas. We welcome conversations to explore collaborative opportunities.

Mission and Vision

Our research and development work aims to improve understanding of how diverse determinants interact in complex ways to affect the health of people and populations. Our methods involve developing relationships with affected individuals, organizations, and communities to bring together numbers and narratives across multiple levels of the complex systems affecting health. While focusing on specific problems and strengths-based solutions, we attempt to assess and address the contextual factors that result in a great heterogeneity of effects in different settings.  We are working on initiatives that develop shared learning for collective impact.
 
The Center for Community Health Integration's current and planned multilevel research and development addresses the health effects of:

  • poverty, inequality, and an unprepared workforce
  • the interaction of genetics, environment, social structures, and behavior
  • understanding, assessing and improving what provides value in primary health care
  • an effective interface between health care and public health systems