Black community has new option for health care: the church | Health

MILWAUKEE (AP) – Every Sunday at the Friendship Missionary Baptist Church, Rev. Joseph Jackson Jr. praises the Lord in front of his ward. But since last fall, he’s been praising something else his black community needs: the COVID-19 vaccine.

“We want to keep encouraging our people to get out and take your pictures. I have my two, ”Jackson said to applause at church in Milwaukee on a Sunday.

Members of black communities in the United States have become disproportionately ill or have died from the virus. As a result, some church leaders use their influence and trustworthy reputation to fight back by preaching from the pulpit, calling people to promote vaccination, and hosting testing clinics and vaccination events in church buildings.

Some want to expand their efforts beyond fighting COVID-19 and give their flocks a place to seek medical help for other diseases in a place they can trust – the Church.

“We cannot go back to normal because we died in our normality,” Debra Fraser-Howze, founder of Choose Healthy Life, told The Associated Press. “We have differences in health that were so serious that a pandemic wiped us out more than any other. We cannot allow something like this to happen again. “

Choose Healthy Life, a national initiative involving black ministers, the United Way of New York City and others, has received a $ 9.9 million grant from the US Department of Health to expand vaccinations and improve health navigators who are already operating to make permanent coronavirus tests and vaccinations in churches.

The navigators will eventually bring in experts on vaccinations like the flu and screen for diseases common in black communities, including heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, AIDS and asthma. Efforts aim to reduce discomfort in black communities when seeking medical care, either due to concerns about racism or historical distrust of science and government.

The initiative has so far been responsible for over 30,000 vaccinations in the first three months in 50 churches in New York; Newark, New Jersey; Detroit; Washington, DC; and Atlanta.

The federal funding will expand the group’s efforts to 100 churches, including rural areas, 13 states, and the District of Columbia, and help build an infrastructure for the health navigators to initiate screenings. Quest Diagnostics and its foundation have already provided funding and testing assistance.

Choose Healthy Life expects to be involved for at least five years, after which organizers hope that oversight and funding will be handled locally, possibly by health authorities or in coordination with federally supported health centers, Fraser-Howze said.

The initiative also plans to hold seminars in churches on general health topics. Some churches already have health clinics and hope this will encourage other churches to follow suit, said Fraser-Howze, who headed the National Black Leadership Commission on AIDS for 21 years.

“The Black Church has to be that connection between faith and science,” she said.

Milwaukee resulted in nearly 43% of all coronavirus-related deaths in the black community, according to the Milwaukee Department of Health. Census data shows that blacks make up approximately 39% of the city’s population. An initiative in which Pastors United, Milwaukee Inner City Congregations Allied for Hope and Souls to the Polls was involved, has already provided vaccinations in at least 80 churches there.

According to studies by the Brookings Institution, Milwaukee is one of the most segregated cities in the country. Ericka Sinclair, CEO of Health Connections, Inc., which manages vaccinations, says that’s why it’s so important to have vaccination centers in churches and other trusted places.

“Access to services is not the same for everyone. It just ain’t. And it’s just another reason why when we talk about health equity … we need to make a course correction, “she said.

She is also working to fund more community health workers through insurance companies, including Medicaid.

The Milwaukee Inner City Congregations Allied for Hope, a religious organization that advocates social issues, participated in the church’s vaccination campaigns. Executive director and executive organizer Lisa Jones says the impact of COVID-19 on the black community has increased the need to address racial health inequalities. The group hired another organizer to address the inequalities in downtown hospital services and housing, as well as lead contamination.

At a vaccination clinic in Milwaukee, St. Matthew, a Methodist Episcopal Church, Melanie Paige overcame her fear of vaccination. Paige, who suffers from lupus and rheumatoid arthritis, said the church clinic helped motivate her, along with encouragement from her son.

“I felt more comfortable because I belong to the Church and I know I’ve been here all my life. That made it easier. “

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Associated Press religious coverage is supported by the Lilly Foundation through The Conversation US. AP is solely responsible for this content.

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source https://dailyhealthynews.ca/black-community-has-new-option-for-health-care-the-church-health/