Letter to Hon. Patrick Leahy, Chairman Senate Appropriations; Hon. Richard Shelby, Vice Chairman Senate Appropriations; Hon. Patty Murray, Chair Senate Appropriation; Hon. Roy Blunt, Ranking Member Senate Appropriations; Hon. Rosa L. DeLauro, Chair Senate Appropriations; Hon. Kay Granger, Ranking Member Senate Appropriations; Hon. Patrick Leahy, Chairman Senate Appropriations; Hon. Tom Cole, Ranking Member Senate Appropriations

Letter

Dear Chairs DeLauro, Leahy and Murray, Vice Chairman Shelby, and Ranking Members Blunt,
Granger, and Cole:

As you consider Fiscal Year 2022 (FY22) spending bills, I urge you to provide $67 million for
the Area Health Education Center (AHEC) program. The funding levels of $47 million for
AHEC in the proposed Senate appropriations bill and $41.25 million in the proposed House
appropriations bill is a good start, but I urge you to provide the full level of $67 million in your
final bill. With such funding, each of the over 250 AHECs across the country would receive
annual federal funding of approximately $250,000 which would allow them to expand their efforts to recruit, train, and retain diverse health professionals in the national health care workforce.

The devastating impact of COVID in our communities and within the healthcare delivery system
is ever-present. AHECs have been critical in the continuance of access to quality health care in
underserved communities, particularly primary and preventive care. Funding the program at $67
million would improve the ability of AHEC to address health disparities through virtual
education and trainings for health profession students entering the workforce in this COVID
environment.

AHECs are present in 85% of all counties nationally and support health care workforce
development and education by training providers in interdisciplinary settings to respond to the
needs of special and underserved populations. AHECs commit to diversifying the health
workforce by recruiting a diverse population of youth to health care careers and facilitating the
distribution of clinicians, especially in rural and underserved communities. Each AHEC places
students in health professions in a variety of real-world settings, such as migrant, urban, and rural
community health clinics and health departments, to provide health care to rural and underserved
populations. With close to 50 years of operation, AHECs meet the current and emerging needs of
the communities they serve through robust community-academic partnerships, with a focus on
exposure, education, and training of the current and future health care workforce.

In New York State, there are two regional centers and nine AHECs spread across the state. One
example of AHEC programming from 2020 includes the Brooklyn-Queens-Long Island AHEC
facilitating virtual and experiential learning activities for high school students that focused on
health disparities, including checking in on homebound seniors, updating outreach materials,
vaccine outreach, and sharing public health approaches to community-specific health issues.

At a time when the country is facing health provider shortages coupled with the COVID-19
pandemic, it is critical that we increase support to the AHEC program. The AHEC program
brings more trained and skilled health providers into the workforce in a way that is responsive to
local health needs. AHECs connect academic training programs with community-based outreach
programs and, because AHECs are embedded in the communities they serve, they are positioned
to recognize and respond to needs of vulnerable and underserved populations as such needs arise.
Funding the AHEC program at $67 million provides critical opportunities to support AHECs as
they work in the communities they serve to address the health workforce needs related to the
COVID-19 pandemic; strengthen linkages between university health science centers and
community health service delivery systems to provide additional training sites for students,
faculty, and practitioners; increase the return on federal investment by leveraging state and local
resources to meet the required 1:1 funding match in support of health workforce development;
and expedite the transformation of the health care system by training the workforce for a valuebased, patient-centered, team-based practice environment for innovative models of care.

We greatly appreciate your support for the AHEC program to ensure the health workforce is
prepared to meet the country's evolving and emerging health care needs. As such, we urge you to include $67 million for this important program in the final appropriations package for FY2022.
Thank you for your leadership on this issue and consideration of this request.

Source