Becoming a Better Neighbor
By Brittany King and Sharon Tregaskis, Photographs by Rudy Diaz
On a cloudy, cool July morning in Washington Heights, a PIX 11 camera crew is filming at The Armory’s Nike Track & Field Center, the 65,000-square-foot indoor arena across the street from the Hammer Health Sciences Building. Rita Finkel, co-president of The Armory Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to strengthening community, preps a group of Washington Heights seniors on what to expect and hypes them up to go live. Music begins playing, and a dozen older adults in yellow and pink t-shirts surround anchor Ben Aaron, dancing.
The footage will accompany an evening news segment about training programs offered at The Armory, including Seniors AIM High, a collaboration of The Armory Foundation with Columbia University Irving Medical Center. Launched in 2022, the program was designed to engage local residents over 60 in weekly exercise and create informal opportunities to promote preventive care.
“When I looked at the community members The Armory Foundation was serving, the seniors were a group that we knew we were missing and needed to reach,” says Ms. Finkel, who also serves as director of Armory College Prep. “We turned to other organizations in the neighborhood to find support, and CUIMC was happy to join us. The institution provides the medical support, and we provide the space and equipment for our seniors to work out.”
During its first year, Seniors AIM High had 100 regulars. Participants got their blood pumping with boxing, yoga, and Zumba sessions. News-you-can-use talks by internal medicine clinicians covered topics like screening for diabetes and how to make heart- healthy meals at home. Since organizers added a second day each week, participation has swelled to 600 community members.
“The focus isn’t about trying to prescribe them anything, or get them to come in for a checkup,” says Ms. Finkel, who sees the project as a model for gyms nationwide. “Historically, seniors have walked around malls to get in their movement; this program gives them other opportunities and allows them to engage with health professionals and their community in an intentional way.”
The Armory Foundation’s collaborations with CUIMC run deep. Seniors AIM High extends the Foundation’s long-running campaign to promote physical health and wellness access in Washington Heights, Inwood, Harlem, and South Bronx neighborhoods. CUIMC activities at Armory facilities have included commencement events, white coat ceremonies, and receptions for transplant recipients and their donors. During the early years of COVID-19, the track served as a mass vaccination center.
The relationship exemplifies what’s possible when CUIMC and neighborhood organizations work together toward a common cause, says Sandra Harris, CUIMC vice president of Academic and Community Partnerships. “We’re doing so much good work at the medical center,” she explains, “but it needs to be exciting, relatable, and translatable to the people who can use this info to improve their lives.”
Neighbor to Neighbor
Ms. Harris is no stranger to the efforts of Northern Manhattan’s residents to support their community members. A Washington Heights native herself, she served in the 1990s as a constituent services liaison for New York State Senator Franz Leichter, a staunch human rights champion. She later worked for Washington Heights-based Alianza Dominicana, the largest Dominican community development organization in the U.S., and served as executive director of the Northern Manhattan Community Voices Collaborative, promoting local partnerships to enhance access to quality health care services.
At CUIMC for 25 years—most recently as vice president of government and community relations—Ms. Harris credits Columbia University interim President Katrina Armstrong, MD, with setting a bold course for the medical center’s role in Northern Manhattan and beyond when she launched the Office of Academic and Community Partnerships (OACP) in February 2024. “This office was created as a rallying point to look at all the community-oriented initiatives taking place at the medical school and figure out how to partner with community members while also strengthening our relationships with community partners,” says Ms. Harris.
She is joined in the work by longtime community health champions neurologist Olajide Williams, MD, vice dean for community health, and primary care physician Rafael Lantigua, MD, director of the Office of Community Service Programs since 2019 and associate dean for community programs.
Dr. Williams, a leader in stroke disparities and community-based behavioral intervention research, currently leads a five-year, $6 million NIH-funded interventional trial to mitigate social determinants of health in stroke outcomes and build community capacity. He is also founder and chair of Hip Hop Public Health, which develops multimedia public health campaigns to engage young people and their families on the topics of health and wellness. “VP&S is probably the premier medical school in New York City,” he says. “Our goal is to heal, reduce suffering, and help people improve their well-being and their health outcomes.” Yet health outcomes in the neighborhoods surrounding the medical center remain some of the poorest in the city. “Clearly,” says Dr. Williams, “we can do better.”
Bridge Builders
With 3,500 students, just over 3,000 full-time faculty, more than 6,700 full-time employees, and extensive research and clinical operations, CUIMC boasts a massive economic and physical footprint in Washington Heights. The predominantly Hispanic neighborhood’s residents include people of Dominican, Puerto Rican, and Cuban heritage; the majority speak a language other than English, and about half are immigrants to the U.S.
Ms. Harris, Dr. Williams, and Dr. Lantigua aim to bridge the divide by forging new connections with community groups, getting the word out about research findings, and strengthening partnerships among community members, neighborhood organizations, and the institution.
The first step is cataloging the array of existing initiatives and collaborations—official and unofficial. Throughout the spring and summer of 2024, OACP staff met one on one with community partners. As part of its overall strategic planning process, VP&S convened 16 committees comprising faculty, staff, students, and community leaders. Three of those groups focused on community engagement, exploring such topics as student involvement in the community; research efforts that engage Washington Heights’ diverse population; and neighborhood events that students, faculty, and staff could attend. The three committees identified existing programs that needed more support, like Seniors AIM High, and offered a host of suggestions on improving neighborhood relations. Among all three committees, a central theme emerged: the need for residents and the CUIMC community to interact intentionally and frequently throughout the year.
Over the last six months, OACP staff have delved into the details of how community partners have historically interacted with the medical center, compiled a roster of health care resources sought by community leaders, and identified opportunities to broaden ongoing collaborations. Ms. Harris and her team are also reaching out to organizations without existing ties to the medical center, intent on opening lines of communication.
“We have been aware of the tensions between our neighbors and the institution for some time,” says Ms. Harris. Beyond serving as a central point for once-disparate offices that each had a hand in serving the community, Ms. Harris envisions a more integrated role for CUIMC in the community, with her office furnishing a contact point for local businesses, future students, and other community members looking to connect with the institution. A top priority will be supporting improved community health outcomes throughout Northern Manhattan.
“In some of our initial conversations we’ve learned how important it is to present health information in a way that is accessible to the community,” says Ms. Harris. “Eventually we want our neighbors to see a news story about research being conducted, or a new vaccine and be proud to say, ‘my neighborhood institution did that.’”
A Deep Foundation
Dr. Lantigua, now a professor of medicine, joined the faculty in 1980. Back then, he says, CUIMC had a more isolationist stance. Undaunted, he was the driving force behind the Columbia Center for the Active Life of Minority Elders (CALME), which supported research to reduce health disparities affecting minority elders and connected medical school researchers with community members. As an early proponent of the Columbia Center for the Health of Urban Minorities, Dr. Lantigua—himself an immigrant from the Dominican Republic, where he earned his medical degree—championed a paradigm shift in community-based research to embrace the leadership and insights of community members as equal partners in the work.
CUIMC’s responsibilities extend beyond its neighbors’ health outcomes, says Dr. Lantigua. “We’re the biggest employer in this neighborhood and we need to ensure we’re serving our staff and clients, but we also need to make sure we’re understanding what the community needs,” he says.
Ana Cepin’99 was born and raised in the neighborhood. Now an associate professor of obstetrics & gynecology and director of the Community Women’s Health Program in the Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology at Columbia, Dr. Cepin catalogs the assets she experienced growing up. “There are great things about our community: the commitment to family and social networks, the resilience,” she says. “The creation of OACP is a recognition of how important it is to be in the community and provides ongoing support for the work already happening.”
As medical director of NewYork-Presbyterian’s Family Planning Practice, which provides sexual and reproductive health care to people who are underinsured or uninsured, Dr. Cepin sees first-hand the hazards of maternal morbidity and mortality that plague her patients throughout the first 12 months following childbirth. To combat those trends, she launched a community women’s health office, a collaboration between the obstetrics & gynecology department and NYP’s Division of Community and Population Health. Services include postpartum doulas, maternal mental health, and parenting programs.
To get the word out among people who are most at risk, Dr. Cepin and colleagues worked with Finn Partners, a local marketing agency, on Keep the Beat, an initiative to boost awareness of the increased risk of cardiovascular disease for people who have had preeclampsia or gestational diabetes. The bilingual campaign utilized social media, bus ads, and posters around Washington Heights to encourage residents to safeguard their own health after delivering their baby.
“Many of us have worked with this community for decades,” says Dr. Cepin. “We see firsthand that due to our nation’s systems and systemic injustices, people are at higher risk for adverse outcomes.”
The nonprofit Northern Manhattan Improvement Corporation (NMIC) tackles the systemic injustices that plague the most vulnerable residents of Washington Heights. Founded in 1979 as a grassroots effort to provide access to legal housing support for immigrants, NMIC has expanded to serve residents of Upper Manhattan and the Bronx experiencing barriers across the array of social drivers of health: housing, education and employment, financial and legal aid, food access, and more. In 2003, CUIMC joined with NMIC and other community partners to launch an initiative aimed at helping parents recognize early signs of asthma in young children and introduce effective management strategies.
Since then, the working relationship has gained depth and breadth. Ms. Harris sits on NMIC’s board, and NMIC staff members serve as community ambassadors with the Irving Institute for Clinical and Translational Research’s community engagement core. CUIMC provides material support and volunteers for NMIC’s annual gala, and social work interns serve NMIC constituents.
Maria Lizardo, executive director of NMIC for the last decade, says she’s pleased with how CUIMC has shown up for the organization. She expects even more as OACP hits its stride and engages in the frank and honest conversations necessary to build trust. “Not all the folks who work at Columbia are integrated in the community,” she says. “You can’t just come in to take—you need to be an anchor in the community.”
Already, CUIMC has begun identifying trusted community leaders who are willing and able to share upcoming research participation opportunities with their neighbors. The medical center has also established a clinical translation ambassador program that brings together researchers with NMIC staff, who offer guidance and recommendations on everything from study design to the dissemination of findings. “We are a world-class research institution,” says Ms. Harris, “and we should be sharing our findings and resources with our neighbors.”
The Long View
VP&S students have a rich history of disseminating resources from their own training throughout the community. “Students come to VP&S with a sincere commitment to serving our Washington Heights neighbors,” says primary care physician Rosa Lee, MD, senior associate dean for curricular affairs. “In my conversations with both prospective and current students, they frequently ask about the relationship between CUIMC and the community. Students are seeking opportunities to contribute meaningfully and make a lasting impact, and they understand that this only happens when our relationship with the community is rooted in respect and collaboration.”
For many, those early experiences have sparked careers dedicated to community service. Elizabeth Bishop Davis’49 was a first-year medical student in 1946 when she served as a clerk at the first mental health clinic in Harlem, the brainchild of local civil rights activists. The sliding-scale Lafargue Clinic, housed in a church basement, was open two nights each week. Sixteen years later, Dr. Davis was named founding director of Harlem Hospital’s Department of Psychiatry.
Seventy-five years later, Katherine Nash’15, now assistant professor of pediatrics at VP&S, a hospitalist at Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital, and a health services researcher in the Department of Pediatrics, credits her current focus on equity in health care delivery to a project she pursued with two classmates in her first year at VP&S. Together, the trio created a language and cultural immersion program—now known as “Dígame Bienvenidos”— to introduce new VP&S and College of Dental Medicine students to Washington Heights. Says Dr. Nash, “We wanted to connect with our patients, not abroad, but in the communities in which we served.”
Today, an array of longstanding student-run clinics provide services to distinct populations within the community, including people who are unhoused, those without insurance, LGBTQ+ people, individuals seeking support for substance use disorders, and immigrants seeking asylum in the U.S. Additional student-run organizations focus on advocacy, community service, and public awareness on topics including youth pregnancy, nutrition, and mentorship for youth.
Dígame Más—an interprofessional group comprising dental, nursing, public health, and medical students—bolsters connections among Columbia students and their neighbors in Washington Heights by providing language, service, cultural, and health education. The VP&S chapter of White Coats For Black Lives has tackled the systemic challenges that affect health care delivery, leading campaigns to promote better health care for people affected by the carceral system, revamp the allocation of state funds for safety-net hospitals, and eliminate the de facto segregation of health care delivery based on patients’ insurance status. Columbia’s chapters of Students for a National Health Program and WC4BL continue the campaign for universal health care.
“We are all interdependent and connected—a healthier Washington Heights means a better New York City and better New York state,” says Dr. Williams. “Not only are there moral implications of turning a blind eye to the suffering in our backyard, but there is also an economic benefit to the city and our neighborhood when we consider the entire community. We’re not just training doctors and health care workers; we’re preparing people for a global village and a more connected world.”