Multiple programs work to improve quality of life in ways that affect outcomes.
At RWJBarnabas Health, building and sustaining a healthier New Jersey means more than caring for the sick and injured. It also means working with local communities to address key socioeconomic, environmental and behavioral factors known to impact more than 80 percent of health outcomes.
In cities and neighborhoods throughout the state, RWJBarnabas Health has partnered with local leaders and like-minded organizations to increase access to resources including healthy food, lower-cost medication and high-quality education opportunities.
Such initiatives are part of the health system’s Social Impact and Community Investment practice, which leverages a broad range of assets to advance a culture of health, improve quality of life and promote health equity through innovative, evidence-based programs. Here are several recent initiatives:
Saint James Health 340b Retail Pharmacy And Food ‘Farmacy’
RWJBarnabas Health, in partnership with Saint James Health Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC) in Newark, recently opened a new 340b retail pharmacy that provides discounted medication and education to patients at the Saint James primary care office on Lafayette Street. A food “farmacy,” modeled after a similar program that Jersey City Medical Center developed for residents in Hudson County, was also opened in Newark. The “farmacy” offers fresh produce from locally sourced farms along with refrigerated and shelf-stable items to improve access to healthy provisions in an area identified as a food desert. Nutrition counseling and healthy eating education are also provided.
Both programs help address issues of health equity, access to care and health outcomes in the city of Newark, serving patients of Saint James Health FQHC with help from state funding, local government and other community partners.
Blanquita B. Valenti Community School
The recently opened Blanquita B. Valenti Community School is a key component of a sweeping $750 million project funded by RWJBarnabas Health. The project includes development of the state’s first freestanding cancer hospital—the Jack and Sheryl Morris Cancer Center, slated to open in 2025.
The $55 million, 127,000-squarefoot elementary school is built on land donated by RWJBarnabas Health Board of Trustees founding chair Jack Morris. It was developed in collaboration with the city, Middlesex County, Rutgers Cancer Institute and DEVCO (New Brunswick Development Corporation), replacing a school that had stood at the site of the new cancer center.
Community Gardens
Community Medical Center (CMC) and RWJBarnabas Health, with the Sadie Vickers Community Resource Center, began work in April to create a community garden in South Toms River. Volunteers set up 100 earth boxes designed for growing thousands of pounds of fresh fruits and vegetables. Harvests are distributed through farmers’ markets, food pantry programs and community partner organizations. The program provides not only healthy foods in areas that lack supermarkets but also nutrition and wellness education. In 2023, Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital (RWJUH) Hamilton also opened a new community garden at Bromley Field and Sports Complex in Hamilton Township. The garden expands RWJUH Hamilton’s Farm to Family initiative, which provides nutrition education, health screening and food security programs hosted at local community centers.
Local families adopt Farm to Family Community Garden plots for a year and learn to grow healthy produce using sustainable practices. The garden is located alongside RWJUH Hamilton Community Field, opened in 2021 to promote children’s physical and mental health, with both projects built in collaboration with local government, businesses and organizations. The gardens at CMC and RWJUH Hamilton join numerous other gardens that RWJBarnabas Health supports statewide.
Learn more about Social Impact and Community Investment at RWJBarnabas Health.
View full issues of Healthy Together magazine by New Jersey region:
Northeast, serving the community of Jersey City Medical Center in Jersey City
Northwest, serving the communities of Clara Maass Medical Center in Belleville, Cooperman Barnabas Medical Center in Livingston, Newark Beth Israel Medical Center in Newark, Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in Rahway, and Trinitas Regional Medical Center in Elizabeth
Central, serving the communities of Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in Hamilton, New Brunswick and Somerset
South, serving the communities of Community Medical Center in Toms River, Monmouth Medical Center in Long Branch, and Monmouth Medical Center Southern Campus in Lakewood