Area Health Education Centers

Area Health Education Centers (AHECs) are national federally funded programs which address geographic and demographic imbalances in the distribution of health professionals using educational strategies. There are eight regional AHECs in the commonwealth, extending from Hazard in the Appalachian southeast to Covington in the north to Murray in the far western part of the state.

These AHECs coordinate rotations for health professions students to underserved areas, support the community-based faculty who teach them, provide continuing education to practitioners, promote health career pipeline activities both in the public schools and independently, nurture the next generation of providers and scientists, and support health promotional activities.

Some 30,000 children annually in Appalachian Kentucky access heath career or health education programming provided by AHECs, and approximately 22,000 eastern Kentucky health care providers receive continuing education through AHECs. Communities served by these AHECs are predominantly rural and include some of the most disadvantaged counties in the nation. A Kentucky AHEC is closely aligned with each of the Centers for Rural Health, and thus with the CCTS.

The AHEC system in Kentucky is experienced in engaging community partners in translational science. For example, three AHECs are already working with UK researcher Mark Dignan, PhD, director of KF-7 Novel Clinical and Translational Methodologies, in a project to improve colorectal cancer screening rates. A project to study the use of practitioner-created video material in patient education in the examination room has been completed, and a request for pilot funding, through the CCTS, for an expansion of this work is under review.