Promoting Healthy Living Religiously

In another step for preventive health care, State Senator Malcolm A. Smith announced the creation of a new organization whose mission is to promote the health and well being of African Americans. This organization comes at a time when the power of health care and health education to address critical health care issues faced by African Americans has come under attack
Established by Dr. Gerald Deas and Ameer Robertson, a health care attorney, Balm In Gilead Health Lines Inc., will take a heavy approach to promoting health education through the cooperation of local churches.
Calling this a "grass roots effort" to promote healthy citizens, Smith said, "Churches can play an integral role in the health care of our community." Already 30 churches in New York City and Atlanta have signed onto the program in its first week of existence. Churches will receive Health Lines newsletters available four times a year for a small fee. The fee is usually covered by a local health care sponsor, and the churches distribute the letters to parishioners. Specifically in Queens, parishioners should be able to find these newsletters in Bethesda Missionary Baptist Church, New Jerusalem, St. Albans Presbyterian church, St. Albans Congregational Church, and St. Johns Baptist Church. Smith expects that he will be able to convince more local churches to join in coming weeks.
The African-American medical community has been pushing for a long time for churches, colleges and local organizations to become involved in a more local effort to improve health issues. Recent statistics show that the need for preventive healthcare education is increasing as the community struggles with effects of diabetes, heart disease and cancer, which African Americans are often more succeptible to.
Deas and Smith, who are long time friends, have joined forces to increase the effectiveness of the program. "I expect a very positive community reaction," Smith said. "Every week the members of the church will be getting information about different things they can do for problems with asthma, hypertension, diabetes and high blood pressure, and this information will be very common sense. "The program intends to use catchy phrases, poetry, humor, and anecdotes in Health Lines to impart health information to the population in easy-to-understand ways that the readers will enjoy. Balm In Gilead, Inc. hopes that it will eventually serve as a national advocate on the topic of African-American health care.
Did you know?
These statistics make the need for preventative health care education even stronger in the African-American community
The prevalence of diabetes among African Americans is about 70% higher than among white Americans.
For every white American who gets diabetes, 1.6 African Americans get diabetes.
One in four black women, 55 years of age or older, has diabetes.
Twenty-five percent of blacks between the ages of 65 and 74 have diabetes.
African Americans with diabetes are more likely to develop diabetes complications and experience greater disability from the complications than white Americans with diabetes
African Americans are at a higher risk than any other group for hypertension.
Infant mortality rates are twice as high for African Americans as for white Americans.
The five-year survival rate for cancer among African Americans diagnosed for 1986-1992 was about 44%, compared with 59% for white Americans.
Primary open-angle glaucoma is the leading cause of blindness among African-Americans. It occurs six to eight times more often among African-Americans than Caucasians, and often occurs earlier in life
Although African Americans represent only 12% of the population, close to 26% of all asthma deaths are in African Americans. In 2001, an estimated 3 million African Americans had asthma. The asthma prevalence rate among Blacks was more than 23% higher than that for whites.
In 2000, 23.2% of African Americans smoked; more than 45,000 African Americans die from smoking-related diseases annually. While African Americans smoke fewer cigarettes per day than whites, on average, they tend to smoke brands with higher nicotine levels.
 If current patterns continue, an estimated 1.6 million African Americans who are now under the age of 18 will become regular smokers. About 500,000 of those smokers will die of a smoking-related disease.
The incidence rate of lung cancer for African American males is more than 45% higher than that of white men. The lung cancer mortality rate in African American males is almost 34% higher than that of white males. Females of both races have similar rates.
African Americans are eight times more likely to contract active tuberculosis than are whites.
Compiled from www.blackhealthcare.com  and www.nlm.nih.gov