Alaska Center for Rural Health and Health Workforce - Alaska's AHEC

The Alaska Area Health Education Centers (AHEC) program began at the University of Alaska Anchorage (UAA) in 2005. AHECs are academic and community-based partnerships engaged in primary care workforce engagement, training and recruiting, and retaining activities to improve the distribution, diversity, supply and quality of health care personnel. The Alaska AHEC program office (at UAA) contracts with six regional Centers to implement educational activities involving health professions and to expose students to primary care delivery in rural and/or underserved settings. In addition, AHECs work closely with state and local workforce investment boards to identify and address health care needs and shortages. 

The Alaska AHEC addresses its mission by working in the following areas:

• Engaging Alaskans into health careers to evolve the future health workforce
• Training health professions students in rural communities or with underserved populations via the AHEC Scholars Program
• Retaining Alaska’s health workforce by increasing access to and providing CE/CME opportunities statewide

The AHEC program is made possible through support provided by the University of Alaska Anchorage / Alaska Center for Rural Health-Alaska's AHEC, and HRSA # U77HP23073.