Welcome to the NC Center for Health & Wellness

Welcome to the North Carolina Center for Health & Wellness at UNC Asheville.

Our mission is to develop healthy North Carolina communities with equitable opportunities, with a particular focus on addressing health disparities in the prevention and treatment of chronic health conditions. The North Carolina Center for Health & Wellness (NCCHW) works to build the capacity of diverse community and institutional partners statewide, to advance more equitable policies, and to ignite community initiatives. Our goal is to contribute to building healthier places throughout the state. Housed at UNC Asheville, we leverage cross-disciplinary faculty and staff and engage passionate and committed students. 

We were seeded with state funding in 2007 and established with a commitment to prevention of chronic diseases and health promotion. Since then we have worked through grant and contract support to address numerous health outcomes and social drivers. 

Two initiatives have been part of our core work since 2015. As North Carolina’s statewide resource center for evidence-based health programs, Healthy Aging NC connects people to the programs and agencies that improve community health; increases the capacity of providers to offer these programs; maintains the website with current program information and online registration systems; and collects and analyzes data to report results. The Culture of Results (COR) initiative provides training and support to assess opportunities and impact, strengthen coordination, and improve and sustain programs and systems statewide. Three additional initiatives were established in 2020– two providing direct support for health promotion, the Social Bridging Project and the Collaborative Student Health Ambassador Program, and one addressing the health policy issues and opportunities for people in WNC, the Health Policy Initiative.

Our work collectively improves health outcomes for historically marginalized populations statewide and builds systems to support the inclusivity and decision-making abilities of these underserved populations long term. NCCHW also has a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion workgroup that operationalizes NCCHW’s anti-racist commitments into long-term action. Please click here to learn more.

 

For general NCCHW support and inquiries, please contact Cynthia Fountain at ckfountain@unca.edu

For Healthy Aging NC support, please contact healthyagingncinfo@gmail.com 

For Culture of Results support, please contact Alex Mitchell at anielson@unca.edu 

For WNC Health Policy Initiative support, please contact Soni Pitts at spitts@unca.edu

Marie Messer

Healthy Aging NC

Healthy Aging NC connects people to the programs and agencies that improve community health.

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culture of results initiative group photo

Culture of Results

The Culture of Results Initiative assesses impact, strengthens coordination, and improves programs and systems statewide.

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Collaborative Work

The NC Center for Health & Wellness conducts research with a variety of community partners to address all aspects of health.

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