Mission

The mission of HEALTH PEOPLE is to train and empower residents of communities overwhelmed by HIV/AIDS and other chronic diseases to become leaders and educators to fight ill health and unnecessary death.

What We Do

HEALTH PEOPLE is an internationally recognized community agency based in the South Bronx that uses peer education to train residents from low-income communities to become leaders to effectively fight chronic ill health.

We are a recognized leader in HIV/AIDS prevention, offering a full range of services for men, women and families, as well award-winning asthma, diabetes and smoking prevention and cessation programs, and mentoring programs for children, teens and young men on parole.

Ms. Chris Norwood, a noted author and healthcare advocate, started Health People in 1990 as a women’s HIV/AIDS peer education program after breaking the story in Ms. Magazine that women with AIDS were routinely undercounted, and their deaths attributed to other causes.

The program, then called Health Force, began in a single room at Bronx Community College. In March 2004, Health People, having grown and developed into a multi-faceted agency, spun off from CUNY, its former fiscal sponsor, to become an independent nonprofit organization.

Over the years, health officials from five continents, and all over the U.S., have come to Health People’s South Bronx offices to learn about starting these effective, empowering programs in their own communities.

In 2005, Chris Norwood, Health People founder and executive director, was nominated for a special Nobel Peace prize for her pioneering work in community health and peer education.