Anchor Institution Mission | UC Davis Health

In 2020, UC Davis Health formally launched its Anchor Institution Mission (AIM) for Community Health. The UC Davis Health AIM initiative is focusing on economically distressed communities in the Sacramento region. At the start of the AIM initiative in 2020, four geographic areas were identified as priority communities. This was later expanded to five, but with further evolution of the initiative, the AIM Communities have expanded to include 13 geographic areas based on distance to the UC Davis Medical Center campus, and in alignment with the Aggie Square Community Benefits Partnership Agreement, AIM is focused on 13 of these zip codes: 95817, 95820, 95824, 95828, 95811, 95814, 95815, 95822, 95823, 95838, 95818, 95832, 95833.

As one of the leading institutions in both higher education and health care in the region, UC Davis Health is committed to leveraging its economic power and human and intellectual resources to increase the economic vitality of our surrounding nearby communities in thereby improving the health welfare and wellbeing of their residents.

What is an Anchor Institution?

Anchor institutions are nonprofit or public place-based entities such as universities and hospitals that are rooted in their local community by mission, invested capital, or relationships to customers, employees, residents, and vendors.

A commitment to consciously apply the long-term, place-based economic power of the institution, in combination with its human and intellectual resources, to better the long-term welfare of the community in which the institution is anchored.—Norris, T and Howard T, "Can Hospitals Heal America’s Communities", 2015

Want to know more about our anchor work?

For more information about the work we are doing with the Anchor Institution Mission, please contact Touyee Thao, the Program Analyst for Anchor Institution Mission at tpthao@ucdavis.edu.

For other inquiries, contact Khoban Kochai, M.P.H., Director for the Anchor Institution and Culture/Climate at UC Davis Health. She can be reached by email at kbkochai@ucdavis.edu.