ACLM and NACHC launch partnership to enhance well being outcomes for greater than 30 million FQHC sufferers

By increasing entry to high-quality schooling, culturally responsive implementation fashions, and sensible assist, the partnership equips clinicians with instruments to deal with the foundation causes of power illness, empowering sufferers to make and maintain significant life-style modifications.

By Stacia Johnston | ACLM Director of Health Equity Advancement 
Luis Padilla, MD | Chief Health Officer

July 31, 2025

At a Community Health Center in rural Georgia, sufferers managing or in danger for sort 2 diabetes collect month-to-month for shared medical appointments targeted on life-style modifications. Each two-hour session blends scientific care with schooling and peer assist. Participants learn the way diet, bodily exercise, sleep, and stress have an effect on power illness—and the way small, sustainable modifications could make a giant distinction. They set SMART targets for the month forward, share progress and challenges, and even obtain recent produce donated by an area farmer to assist put what they’re studying into observe at dwelling. 

The outcomes? Nothing in need of inspiring. Over simply six months, members considerably elevated their consumption of recent produce, misplaced a median of almost 30 kilos, doubled their weekly train time, and improved each their sleep and stress ranges. Their A1c ranges stabilized or declined—an particularly significant end result in a inhabitants the place these numbers usually pattern upward. Most importantly, each single participant mentioned they’d suggest the group to others of their neighborhood. 

VIDEO: Learn how one health center in rural Georgia is changing health outcomes through lifestyle medicine shared medical appointments. 

These are usually not remoted outcomes. They symbolize what’s attainable when clinicians are outfitted with the instruments and coaching to deal with the foundation causes of power illness—one thing our new partnership goals to make extra accessible nationwide. 

The American College of Lifestyle Medicine (ACLM) is proud to announce a strategic partnership with the National Association of Community Health Centers (NACHC) to broaden entry to life-style medication schooling, coaching, and implementation assist for clinicians working in Community Health Centers (CHCs), together with Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs) and clinic “Look-Alikes” that function like CHCs. 

What is “lifestyle medicine”?

Lifestyle medication is an evidence-based medical specialty that applies therapeutic life-style interventions to deal with, reverse, and forestall power situations like cardiovascular illnesses, sort 2 diabetes, and weight problems. By empowering sufferers to make life-style habits modifications in six interconnected pillars—optimum diet, bodily exercise, restorative sleep, stress administration, connectedness, and dangerous substance avoidance—life-style medication goals to eradicate the foundation reason for illness. 

Why this partnership issues

Serving 32.5 million sufferers yearly—about 1 in 10 Americans—CHCs play a significant position in offering important healthcare to underserved communities. They present care to roughly one in 5 uninsured people, one in three individuals residing in poverty, and one in 5 rural Americans. These teams and lots of different particular populations served by CHCs are disproportionately burdened by power illness and expertise non-clinical elements (e.g., surroundings, housing, meals) that impede their capability to stay wholesome life. Yet, clinicians in these facilities usually lack the assets to drive lasting wholesome habits change. Thus, it’s crucial to companion with organizations that assist workforce growth and coaching help for CHC clinicians nationwide.   

ACLM’s strategic partnership with NACHC will speed up the combination of life-style medication into CHCs nationwide. By increasing entry to high-quality schooling, culturally responsive implementation fashions, and sensible assist, the partnership equips clinicians with instruments to deal with the foundation causes of power illness, empowering sufferers to make and maintain significant life-style modifications. 

Through this collaboration, NACHC members acquire entry to: 

• Implementation fashions that assist team-based care and equal entry to care, together with life-style medication shared medical appointments (LMSMAs) and different scalable approaches tailor-made to FQHC settings.

ACLM is proud to assist clinicians serving among the nation’s most underserved communities. Together with NACHC, we’re working to make sure that the confirmed advantages of life-style medication—higher affected person outcomes, empowered sufferers, and extra clinician pleasure in observe—are accessible to all, no matter earnings, zip code, or background.

Celebrating well being facilities throughout National Health Center Week—and past

As we have a good time National Health Center Week this August, ACLM acknowledges the important position that FQHCs and CHCs play in making high quality, reasonably priced healthcare accessible to all. These facilities are usually not solely trusted pillars of care of their communities, however they’re additionally uniquely positioned to drive lasting change in power illness outcomes. 

Through this new partnership with NACHC, ACLM is reaffirming its dedication to supporting the individuals and locations that want life-style medication most. From shared medical appointments to diabetes remission packages, we’re working to equip clinicians with the instruments to ship extra than simply care—we’re serving to them ship lasting well being. 

About the writer

Dr. Padilla involves NACHC from the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA). There he served for almost a decade because the Associate Administrator for the Bureau of Health Workforce (BHW), answerable for over 70 workforce packages and 478 workers, and Director of the National Health Service Corps (NHSC), BHW’s largest program of over 18,000 clinicians. A key focus for Dr. Padilla at HRSA was bettering main care throughout the nation and creating, recruiting, and retaining a various and culturally competent well being workforce; beneath his management, the Bureau expanded to its present price range of virtually $2 billion and the NHSC grew to the most important dimension in its 50-year historical past. Prior to becoming a member of HRSA, Dr. Padilla served for greater than a decade at Unity Health Care, the most important neighborhood well being heart system in Washington, DC, as senior well being coverage advisor to the CEO, medical director, and as a NHSC Scholar. He additionally served on the National Advisory Council of the NHSC from 2007 to 2010.

A licensed household doctor, Dr. Padilla obtained a Bachelor of Arts in philosophy and a Bachelor of Science in biology from the University of California at Irvine. He earned a medical diploma from Wake Forest School of Medicine and accomplished his household medication residency at Brown University.

About the writer

Stacia Johnston is the Director of Health Equity Advancement on the American College of Lifestyle Medicine (ACLM). Her profession started fifteen years in the past within the well being sector, the place she labored to assist the communications and advertising division at a small breast most cancers group. Overtime, she started to uncover the inequities in healthcare and the way traditionally underserved populations have been negatively impacted by poor well being outcomes and disproportionate mortality.