The Health Promotion Council of Southeastern Pennsylvania (HPC) is a non-profit corporation whose mission is to promote health, prevent and manage chronic diseases, especially among vulnerable populations, through community-based outreach, education, and advocacy.

Increased tobacco and chronic disease related morbidity and mortality plague underserved populations. Tobacco use and chronic diseases often disparately impact the same population groups. Breaking down programmatic silos and coordinating efforts through collaborations is essential in providing a consistent and powerful health promotion message.

HPC created Bringing Evidence Based Research Initiatives to Disparate Groups with Evaluation BE A BRIDGE, a multi-disciplinary partnership comprised of organizations and professionals working with diverse populations in health, medicine, social and human services. This multidisciplinary collaborative capacity building approach was created to address parallel disparities in chronic diseases and tobacco use among diverse populations.

The BE A BRIDGE partnership leverages its resources to improve Pennsylvania's public health infrastructure and maximize efforts in education, advocacy, training, and technical assistance for community-based organizations.

The information and resources provided by BE A BRIDGE enables member organizations statewide to plan, implement and evaluate effective population-specific interventions that are evidence-based and follow best practice guidelines.

As a result, community based organizations are connected with tools to build and/or integrate effective and culturally appropriate programs and interventions.