The Bridges Center for Healthy Life Transitions builds linkages between community health stakeholders and the university to foster partnerships for improving healthy life transitions through research, education, and service.  If you need assistance with research, field projects, program development, grants procurement or community service referrals, CMU's Bridges Center can help.  The activities of the Bridges Center are focused on the needs of underserved, at-risk people during various life stages and transitions. Each phase requires a unique set of skills. Individuals require varying amounts of preparations and resources to be successful and independent in these transitions and stages, including health care, social services, and education. These stages include 1)Infancy/Toddler; 2) Childhood; 3) Adolescence; 4) Independent Living; 5) Parenthood; 6) Mid-Life/Sustaining Others; 6) Late Life/Retirement; 7) Frailty.

The creation of the Bridges Center represents a merging of expertise and resources among the university and surrounding communities to address long-term Community Health Issues.

The "bridges" metaphor is used to represent the Center's overall purpose to improve the health and well being of people by building relationships or "bridges" between CMU, the surrounding communities: health and human service organizations, public and private sectors, consumers, individuals experiencing life transitions, and other universities with complimentary resources.

Through dynamic and integrated partnerships between the communities of central Michigan and the university, the Bridges Center will achieve improved health and functional ability of residents by enhancing the access of residents to health assessment, health education, and preventive care at critical points throughout life's transitions.