This component of the National Center for Rural Health Professions (NCRHP) is designed, in partnership with rural communities, to identify health care needs and priorities and develop programs and initiatives to address designated areas and issues of concern. The Community Outreach Component is closely allied with other NCRHP programs including the Community Outreach/Dissemination Core of the Project EXPORT Center for Excellence in Rural Health and the Northern Illinois Area Health Education Center (AHEC).

Major activities, to-date, of the Community Outreach Component have included development of rural “community profiles” to provide information to graduates of health professions programs on rural communities providing job opportunities, including summaries of the community’s history as well as housing, employment, education, and recreational characteristics of the community. In conjunction with Project EXPORT and Northern Illinois AHEC, the Community Outreach Component - with sponsorship from the Lt. Governor’s Rural Task Force and in cooperation with the Western Illinois AHEC - this past summer offered a health professions careers camp at Western Illinois University in Macomb. The camp attracted 35 young people from diverse backgrounds who learned about opportunities for health careers in Illinois and strategies for preparing for these careers. Among the health careers disciplines represented at the camp were medicine, nursing, dentistry, pharmacy, and public health.

Plans are underway for developing a community “mini-grant” program in which people and organizations in rural communities can apply for start-up funding to address health issues that have been identified as major community concerns - issues ranging from diabetes and other chronic conditions to access to care and strategies for disease prevention and health promotion.