Closing the Access Gap

This research collection examines two of the most urgent challenges facing American health care: securing the future of community health centers and strengthening the nation's response to Alzheimer's disease. Drawing on current evidence and policy analysis, it reveals how unstable funding, unequal access, workforce shortages, and fragmented systems prevent effective care from reaching the people who need it most. The collection also explores how scientific breakthroughs, early diagnosis, prevention, and sustained public investment can improve outcomes. Clear and solutions-focused, it offers a compelling vision for turning research and innovation into equitable, reliable, and lasting support for patients, families, and communities. Community health centers are the largest primary care system in the country, and they exist to reach the people the rest of the system reaches worst. In 2024 they cared for more than 32 million patients, and across a three-year window as many as 52 million rely on them.1 Nine in ten of their patients live in low-income households. More than six in ten are people of color, and close to a third live in rural areas.