Neighborhood Nursing is a new program in Baltimore that meets people where they are and offers free health checks. Its teams of nurses and community health workers are making weekly visits to the lobbies of three apartment buildings in Johnston Square, a predominantly Black neighborhood disadvantaged by decades of discriminatory housing policies. 

By next year, the team aims to visit more than 4,000 people in the Baltimore metropolitan area at least once a year, meeting them in their homes, seniors centers, libraries or even laundromats. The project is a collaboration with the Coppin State, Morgan State and University of Maryland nursing schools. 

“We’re trying to turn primary care on its head and deliver it in a completely different way,” says project leader Sarah Szanton, dean of the Johns Hopkins School of Nursing. It is for everybody — sick or healthy, rich or poor, young or old, and no matter if they have private insurance, Medicare, Medicaid, or no insurance at all. While 94% of residents in Baltimore are insured there are still startling health disparities, the project says.