The Wholistic Health Center Project: an action-research model for providing preventive, whole-person health care at the primary level.

The Wholistic Health Center action-research project is designed to stimulate new approaches for rectifying a variety of maladies present in the nation's primary health care delivery system. In response to the call for an increase in health education programs, for availability of care in early stages of illness, for care focused on life stress factors, and for better coordination of care-the church-based Wholistic Health Centers utilize a unique multidisciplinary teamwork approach for diagnosis and treatment planning. The patient is involved as an active participant in this process. In conjunction with the University of Illinois, Department of Preventive Medicine and Community Health, the project has developed from its inception as a free clinic in Springfield, Ohio, to the establishment of two potentially self-supporting centers in middle and upper-income suburbs west of Chicago, Illinois.