Designed to transform health care in Western North Carolina and across the state, UNC Health Sciences at MAHEC brings together students and faculty from UNC’s schools of dentistry, medicine, pharmacy and public health, creating unprecedented opportunities for interprofessional training, research, collaboration and innovation to improve the health and wellbeing of a region.
Along with a commitment to invest in every county of North Carolina, UNC Health Sciences at MAHEC’s work aligns with the University’s mandate to “Serve to Benefit Society,” a pillar of Carolina Next: Innovations for Public Good.
North Carolinians are facing countless changes that require new ways of thinking about health care, partnering and investing resources, including:
• inequities in health care outcomes;
• a lack of affordable and accessible care;
• a rapidly aging population;
• shifting payment models and a consolidating health care system;
• increased focus on social determinants of health, such as housing and poverty; and
• an opioid epidemic and the coronavirus pandemic.
These intractable problems require collaboration across communities, regions, disciplines, and industries.
UNC Health Sciences at MAHEC leverages the academic and research strength of UNC-Chapel Hill alongside the decades of community-based partnerships the Mountain Area Health Education Center has developed in the 16-plus counties of Western North Carolina. Together, as UNC Health Sciences at MAHEC, UNC-Chapel Hill and MAHEC have joined forces to help meet the unprecedented health-related challenges of this largely rural region of our state.
