In all program areas, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has made a significant commitment to improving the health and health care of multicultural communities, eliminating disparities and advancing targeted research. The following include some of the Foundation''s most prominent national programs, as well as projects that should be of special interest to media covering these communities.

Childhood Obesity

• African American Collaborative Obesity Research Network
  To improve the quality, quantity, and effective translation of research to address weight-related issues in African-American communities and to enhance the visibility and integration of the perspectives of African American investigators within the larger obesity research arena. www.aacorn.org
• Bridging the Gap
  To improve the understanding of how policies and environmental factors influence diet, physical activity and obesity among youth, as well as youth tobacco use.
  www.bridgingthegapresearch.org
• Communities Creating Healthy Environments: Improving Access to Healthy Foods and Safe Places to Play in Communities of Color
  To support diverse, community-based organizations and indigenous groups with proven track records in developing and organizing for effective, culturally competent policy initiatives that address the root causes of childhood obesity at the local level. www.ccheonline.org
• Faith-based Advocacy: Galvanizing Communities To End Childhood Obesity
  To mobilize faith-based coalitions to advocate for improved food, nutrition and environmental policies that can help halt childhood obesity. www.galvanizing-communities.com
• Healthy Kids, Healthy Communities: Supporting Community Action to Prevent Childhood Obesity
  To catalyze and support policy- and environmental-change initiatives that promote children''s physical activity and healthy eating, especially in lower-income and racial and ethnic communities at greatest risk of obesity. www.healthykidshealthycommunities.org
• Leadership for Healthy Communities: Advancing Policies to Support Healthy Eating and Active Living
  To support local and state government leaders in their efforts to reduce childhood obesity through policies that promote active living, healthy eating and access to healthy foods, with a particular focus on efforts benefiting racial and ethnic populations in low-income communities. www.leadershipforhealthycommunities.org
• Salud America! The RWJF Research Network to Prevent Obesity Among Latino Children
  To stimulate and support investigator-initiated research and build a field of researchers focused on preventing obesity among Latino children. www.salud-america.org
• The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Center to Prevent Childhood Obesity
  To serve as the nation's leading resource for best policies and practices to create healthier environments in schools and communities and reverse the childhood obesity epidemic. www.reversechildhoodobesity.org

Coverage

• Cover the Uninsured
  To highlight the fact that too many Americans are living without health insurance and, through this coordinated national effort, to demand solutions from the nation''s leaders. covertheuninsured.org
• Maximizing Enrollment for Kids: Making Medicaid and SCHIP Work
  To increase health insurance coverage of eligible but uninsured children in Medicaid and SCHIP by helping states improve their policies and procedures and to measure the impact of these changes. www.maxenroll.org

Human Capital

• Harold Amos Medical Faculty Development Program
  To provide research awards to physicians from historically underrepresented groups who are committed to developing careers in academic medicine, improving the health of underserved populations and furthering understanding and elimination of health disparities. www.amfdp.org
• Jobs to Careers: Promoting Work-Based Learning for Quality Care
  To establish systems that train, develop, reward and advance current front-line health and health care workers to improve the quality of care and ensure the quality of services provided to patients and communities. www.jobs2careers.org
• Ladder to Leadership: Developing the Next Generation of Community Health Leaders
  To develop a cadre of future health leaders from community-based nonprofit organizations serving vulnerable people. www.laddertoleadership.org
• New Connections: Increasing Diversity of RWJF Programming
  To expand the diversity of perspectives that inform RWJF program strategy and to support researchers from historically disadvantaged and underrepresented communities. www.rwjf-newconnections.org
• Pipeline, Profession and Practice: Community-Based Dental Education
  To assist dental schools in increasing access to dental care for underserved populations and recruiting and training more low-income and minority students. www.dentalpipeline.org
• Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Community Health Leaders
  To provide recognition for the contributions community health leaders make to achieving RWJF''s mission and goals and to enhance their capacity to have more permanent and widespread impact on health problems. www.communityhealthleaders.org
• Summer Medical and Dental Education Program
  To develop and implement a six-week academic enrichment program for undergraduate college students from minority groups, rural areas and economically disadvantaged backgrounds who are interested in pursuing careers in medicine or dentistry. www.smdep.org
• The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Center for Health Policy at the University of New Mexico
  To increase the number of leaders from Latino and American Indian communities who are helping to shape the future of health and health care and to insert the voices of Latino, American Indian and other "underrepresented" groups into health policy debates. healthpolicy.umn.edu

Quality/Equality

• Aligning Forces for Quality: The Regional Market Project
  To support grants and technical assistance to community coalitions to work toward high-quality, patient-centered and equitable care. www.forces4quality.org
• Building Community Supports for Diabetes Care
  To support partnerships among local health care providers and community organizations to address diabetes prevention and self-management issues in communities where cultural and ethnic diversity influence related health behaviors. www.diabetesinitiaitve.org
• Expecting Success: Excellence in Cardiac Care
  To undertake a hospital quality improvement collaborative to improve cardiac care for African Americans and Latinos. www.expectingsuccess.org
• Finding Answers: Disparities Research for Change
  To seek and evaluate promising interventions in health care settings to reduce racial and ethnic disparities, increase dissemination of study findings and share lessons learned with the communities working under the Aligning Forces for Quality initiative. www.solvingdisparities.org
• Hablamos Juntos ("We Speak Together")
  To forge connections between health care providers and the Latino health market through demonstration projects, improve communication between providers and Latino patients and eliminate language barriers that can lead to medical errors and compromised care. http://www.hablamosjuntos.org/
• Speaking Together: National Language Services Network
  To support hospitals in improving the quality and availability of health care language services for patients with limited English proficiency. www.speakingtogether.org

Vulnerable Populations

• Caring Across Communities: Addressing Mental Health Needs of Diverse Children and Youth
  To establish school-connected mental health services for students, with emphasis on overcoming cultural and language barriers of children in immigrant and refugee families. www.healthinschools.org/Immigrant-and-Refugee-Children/Caring-Across-Communities.aspx
• Children''s Futures
  To strengthen parenting, improve access to primary health and child care systems and increase social supports through a collaboration of public agencies and nonprofit community organizations working with families in Trenton, N.J. www.childrensfutures.org
• New Routes to Community Health
  To improve the health of immigrants through immigrant-created media and outreach campaigns that speak directly to immigrants'' health concerns. www.newroutes.org
• Playworks To support learning by providing safe, healthy and inclusive play and physical activity to schools at recess and throughout the entire school day.
  playworksusa.org
• Preventing Partner Violence in Immigrant Communities: Strengthening What Works
  To build the capacity of programs that focus on the prevention of intimate partner violence in immigrant and refugee communities in the United States and to help evaluate these programs'' effectiveness. www.strengtheningwhatworks.org
• Start Strong: Building Healthy Teen Relationships
  To target 11- to- 14-year-olds in a variety of settings and rally entire communities to promote healthy relationships as the way to prevent teen dating violence and abuse. www.startstrongteens.org
• Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Local Funding Partnerships
  To leverage the power of partnership and address community needs through matching grants programs for innovative projects that improve health and health care for vulnerable populations. www.lifp.org

Other

• Commission to Build a Healthier America
  To examine the many factors outside of medical care that influence health. After a year of intensive study and debate, the Commission identified a range of interventions likely to achieve a significant positive impact on the health of all Americans. www.commissiononhealth.org
• Network for Multicultural Research on Health and Healthcare
  To conduct disparities research on the care provided to minority subpopulations for chronic diseases and to mentor junior faculty investigators to develop a new generation of researchers with the skills needed to reduce the disparities through improved health care. www.multiculturalhealthcare.net