Neighborhood Health Centers of the Lehigh Valley
333 West Union
St., , Allentown, PA, 18102
610-820-7605
www.nhclv.org
Neighborhood Health Centers of the Lehigh Valley (NHCLV) of
Allentown, PA was officially incorporated as a nonprofit organization in 2004
by a group of concerned community residents. Their goal was to meet the need
for a coordinated system of primary care for the uninsured and/or underinsured
residents in the Lehigh Valley.
NHCLV, after obtaining designation as a Federally Qualified
Health Center-Look-Alike (FQHC-LA) in September 2010, submitted a New Access
Point application in November 2010 and was awarded grant funding in 2012. NHCLV
currently operates one primary care site, Vida Nueva at Casa and is the first
Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC) in the Lehigh Valley.
An estimated 37,770 persons reside in NHCLV’s service area,
of which 70.4% (26,583) are below 200% of the Federal Poverty Level (FPL),
including 15,390 persons whose income level falls below 100% of the FPL. The
racial make-up of the service area is 59.3% Hispanic or Latino, 48.8% White,
21.2% Black/African-American, and the remaining 1.6% is Asian, multi-racial, or
other. The service area population that is uninsured numbers 7,752 persons, all
of whom are part of NHCLV’s target population. The target population confronts
obstacles to obtaining routine and preventive primary care services due to
linguistic and transportation barriers and extreme poverty.
Health disparities in the service area include high infant
mortality rates, low birth weight, teen pregnancies, heart disease, cancer,
suicide, and diabetes.