History of Community Health Centers

The Community Health Center History and Impact

The journey of CHCs began in 1965, thanks to pioneering doctors and concerned citizens who recognized the critical need for affordable primary care in underserved communities. The first CHCs (originally called Neighborhood Health Centers) were funded as a demonstration project under the Federal Office of Economic Opportunity, the lead federal agency in President Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty.

These fledgling CHCs efficiently targeted local health needs with the help of patient-majority governing boards and over the course of six decades became the largest, most resilient, and innovative healthcare systems in the United States.

Today, CHCs provide comprehensive primary and preventive healthcare services to communities across the nation, saving lives and dollars. Established to ensure all individuals, regardless of their ability to pay, have access to high-quality healthcare, CHCs operate over 17,000 service delivery sites nationwide.

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CHCs by the numbers:

• Serving at least 34 million and up to 52 million patients annually — up to 1 in 7 Americans
• Representing only 1% of total annual healthcare spending in the U.S.
• Providing care to approximately 1 in 5 uninsured individuals
• Serving 1 in 3 people living in poverty

• Serving 1 in 3 rural Americans
• Supporting over 6.4 million patients residing in or near public housing
• Caring for more than 1.4 million individuals experiencing homelessness
• Delivering mental health services to nearly 2.8 million patients annually
• Screening over 72% of adolescent and adult patients for depression