About Us
Our History
CCHA was created through a merger of two highly successful research centers at the Texas A&M University School of Public Health. In September 2022, the Center for Community Health Development (CCHD), founded in 2001, and the Center for Population Health and Aging (CPHA), formally established in 2016, but emerging from the Program on Healthy Aging created in 2004, were merged to take advantage of the remarkable histories and resources of the two centers, while allowing for a more efficient and effective management structure.
Center for Community Health Development
CCHD was originally established as the Community Health Development Program (CHDP) to provide the Texas A&M University School of Public Health (School of Rural Public Health, at the time) with the infrastructure to foster research, service, and education dedicated to improving population health status in predominantly rural and underserved communities. The early success of a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation grant ($3.8 million) provided a strong foundation for securing $11 million from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as one of 37 Prevention Research Centers nationwide. As a result of these achievements, and others, in 2004, the program received “research center” approval from the Texas A&M Board of Regents and was designated as the Center for Community Health Development. Subsequently, CCHD has acquired nearly $60 million in grants and contracts to support health research that utilizes a community health development approach.
In 2009, in conjunction with the Counseling Psychology program at Texas A&M, CCHD helped launch what has become the Telebehavioral Care program at the Texas A&M Health Science Center. Utilizing health resource centers and other community partners, access to mental health services in the region has been dramatically increased for residents of the rural counties.
CCHD has been engaged in various levels of CHW training since 2001, formally developing the NCHWTC in 2010 as a state certified CHW training center. The NCHWTC provides CHW and CHW Instructor certifications as well as continuing education units in-person and online, in both English and Spanish. Since 2001, NCHWTC instructors have delivered more than 137,000 units of training hours to over 7,000 CHWs. In addition to training delivery, the NCHWTC has participated as a collaborator on regional, statewide, and national research projects focusing on the utilization of CHWs and has successfully employed CHWs in a variety of contexts to conduct outreach, education, health promotion, case management, and referral with underserved residents in various communities.
Center for Population Health and Aging
The Texas A&M Center for Population Health and Aging (CPHA) was formally recognized as a Texas A&M Board of Regents Center on November 9, 2016, building upon more than a decade of aging-related research, education, and practice projects under the predecessor Program on Healthy Aging. CPHA addressed complex issues facing our aging nation with measurable, replicable, and cost-effective solutions achieved through a multi-sectorial public health and aging approach. CPHA’s collaborative strategy included attention to campus, community, clinical, and corporate (C4) perspectives. This C4 collaborative approach breaks down typically ‘siloed’ sectors to promote meaningful, ongoing partnerships that reach and engage the public with needed programs, services, and resources. With a goal of making healthy aging the ‘new normal,’ CPHA provided a centralized hub to address the challenges and opportunities of a rapidly aging world. CPHA strived to change stereotypes about aging and encourage a paradigm shift so that healthy aging is viewed as the new normal. Building upon evidence-based practices and a commitment to translating research to practice, CPHA activities focused on social, behavioral, economic, policy, environmental, and technological innovations that positively affect aging individuals, their families, healthcare professionals, and communities. With the goal of creating a hub for aging related research, education, and practice, CPHA appointed three senior fellows and 90 faculty affiliates.
With nearly $30million of funding attributed to CPHA since 2016, the Center engaged in over 35 projects since 2016 and 70 projects since 2001. For example, CPHA’s local, state and national evaluations of evidence-based programs have documented that chronic disease self-management programs, fall prevention programs, and physical activity programs can improve the triple aims of better health, better health care, and better value. CPHA was part of large state-wide initiatives to improve the health of Texans through prevention and outreach, with an emphasis on reducing the burden of diabetes, asthma, and infectious diseases. CPHA also expanded research to examine creative solutions and technology to assist the growing numbers of persons living with dementia and their caregivers.
In 2020, CPHA launched an online training site, Enlighten Together, that will host distance education courses about public health, disease-self management, and socioemotional learning at all ages. With foundation support, CPHA also funded the Texas Research, Analytics, and Innovations Lab (TRAIL), which is a centralized data repository to advance research, practice, and policy related to population health and aging. This large and valuable data resource will allow the Center to strategically engage our ~90 CPHA Faculty Affiliates to access the data to fuel grant submissions, publications, and conference presentations.
Center for Community Health and Aging
As a merged center CCHA invites you to join us on this journey to translate research to practice that can make a difference for maximizing community health and aging.