Health needs of women who have experienced IPV are significant and include physical and mental concerns. IPV creates unique barriers to accessing healthcare, which can be addressed only partially by a crisis center. Greater coordination with the healthcare system is needed to respond more appropriately to the health needs of women who have experienced IPV.

Just for Us is becoming a financially sustainable way of creating a "system within a nonsystem" for low-income elderly persons in clustered housing.

Evidence is accumulating that the United States is falling behind in its potential to translate biomedical advances into practical applications for the population. Societal forces, increased awareness of health disparities, and the direction of clinical and translational research are producing a compelling case for AHCs to bridge the gaps between scientific knowledge and medical advancement and between medical advancement and health. The Duke University Health System, the city and county of Durham, North Carolina, and multiple local nonprofit and civic organizations are actively engaged in addressing this need. More than a decade ago, Duke and its community partners began collaborating on projects to meet specific, locally defined community health needs. In 2005, Duke and Durham jointly developed a set of Principles of Community Engagement reflecting the key elements of the partnership and crafted an educational infrastructure to train health professionals in the principles and practice of community engagement. And, most recently, Duke has worked to establish the Duke Translational Medicine Institute, funded in part by a National Institutes of Health Clinical Translational Science Award, to improve health through innovative behavioral, social, and medical knowledge, matched with community engagement and the information sciences.

Collaborative and participatory research approaches have received considerable attention as means to understanding and addressing disparities in health and health care. In this article, the authors describe the process of building a three-way partnership among two academic health centers-Duke University and the University of North Carolina-and members of the Latino community in North Carolina to develop and pilot test a lay health advisor program to improve Latina immigrants' mental health and coping skills. The authors applied the principles of participatory research to engage community and academic partners, to select the health topic and population, and to develop program goals and objectives. Key challenges were negotiating administrative structures and learning institutional cultures, as well as dealing with contextual issues such as mental health reform and antiimmigrant sentiment in the state.Some important lessons learned are to seek opportunities for taking advantage of existing relationships and expertise at each academic institution, to be respectful of the burden of research on vulnerable communities, and to involve community partners at all stages of the process.