About AHEC

West Virginia University (WVU) received its first Area Health Education Center (AHEC) grant in 1972, from which the WVU Charleston Division campus, in south-central WV, was formed. Today the Charleston Division is a critical part of the state's higher education system and a strong collaborator with the Charleston Area Medical Center (CAMC) system of local hospitals and clinics.

The WV Rural Health Education Partnerships (WVRHEP) program was funded through the Rural Health Initiative (RHI) Act of 1991, subsequent to the award of a Kellogg Foundation grant for the primary care training of health sciences students in rural areas. The existing WVRHEP consortia have been utilized as building blocks for WV AHEC's objectives.

WVU received its second AHEC grant in 1999. The WV AHEC Program is in its third year of funding for establishing four regional centers in the state, in a partnership with the WVRHEP consortia, in order to add residents and more post-graduate trainees to WV RHEP's state-supported training sites.

Each of the four AHEC centers in West Virginia (Eastern, Southeastern, Southwestern, and Northern West Virginia Rural Health Education Center-NWVRHEC) has the unique mission of graduate and health professions education.

AHEC/RHEP is a statewide partnership among local rural communities, higher education, and the state and federal governments. Our funding is from Title VII, DHHR-Labor bill, Health Professions Training, Section 751(a) of Public Health Service Act, as Amended, and the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA).*

The partnership serves 91-percent of the state's rural counties. In 2002 WV health professions students participated in community service activities involving more than 156,000 rural West Virginians.

In Competency Goals for AHEC Team Members, Dr. K.C. Nau, of Harper's Ferry Family Clinic, outlines the correlation between AHEC/RHEP Objectives and Pew Health Professions Competencies.