About the Whole Health Project
The AAFP Whole Health pilot projects are underway in Springfield, Phoenix and Columbia. The goals for the pilot projects include
- leveraging existing materials and developing resources to increase awareness and understanding of the whole health approach among AAFP members;
- providing support and technical assistance to a cohort of family medicine practices; and
- documenting lessons learned and disseminating the findings across public health, lifestyle medicine and family medicine audiences.
Each of the three physicians had a unique approach and goal for their community.
In Springfield, Flax partnered with Ozark Food Harvest and Umoja Food for Health to supply prescription food boxes to patients who have both food insecurity and medical dietary limitations. Rodriguez-Garcia worked with the Chicanos por la Causa and one·n·ten outreach programs with a community aim to help prevent HIV transmission within the Phoenix LGBTQ+ community while improving social connection and stress management strategies among participants. And in Columbia, Greenwood partnered with HopeWorks, Healing House and Edesiagurl to provide wellness programs integrating nutrition, physical activity, social connection and stress management for survivors of domestic and sexual violence. Their work is described in AAFP Whole Health Guide: Pilot Projects, which is supported by the American Academy of Family Physicians Foundation and the Ardmore Institute of Health.
They agree that the results have been positive for both physicians and patients.
“All three doctors have mentioned a lot of engagement by the patients involved in these initiatives,” Grega says. “But even more interesting is that the doctors, their clinical support staff and the community partners they are collaborating with are feeling so energized and excited about being a part of these programs.”
“I feel that this project has had a great impact on the community, not just because they told me, but also because of the changes in the participants that I saw,” Greenwood reports. “It also gave me the opportunity to forge relationships and collaborative efforts with other practitioners in the community.”
What Every Family Physician Can Learn From This Project
Grega says family physicians can take some key lessons into their own practices. One is simply to recognize how a patient’s life situation is central to health outcomes.
“We should elevate in our analysis and treatment plan the importance of the social ecosystem and the group around our patients,” Grega says. “How can we help them connect with social nudges that are going to be most supportive of their health, that also address the things that we are talking about in the clinic?”
In practice, this means building relationships with organizations that can contribute to whole-person health outside the clinic, such as food banks, the YMCA, community gardens, volunteer programs and walking clubs.
“If we talk to a patient in our office about changing their eating pattern, for example, it’s really hard to make those changes on their own if their social ecosystem is not supporting them,” Grega says. “These community-engaged lifestyle medicine and whole-health projects create a support group around the people that are engaged in it, setting them up for long-term success.”
Whole Health Projects Guide and Resources
AAFP Whole Health resources include testimonials from the three family physicians involved in the pilot projects in a three-part video series. Full data from the projects will be released in June and shared with members in AAFP News.
