Newswise — NEW YORK, March 5, 2015 - With 10,000 low-income Bronx residents having gained healthier lives from its evidence-based self-care and prevention courses, all taught by local residents trained as community health educators, Health People: Community Preventive Health Institute today kicked off its 25th anniversary as New York City’s pioneering, largest peer educator-based health organization.
Health People launched its 25th anniversary year at a special graduation for public housing residents who have completed the first six months of the National Diabetes Prevention Program (DPP), a weekly course that slashes the risk that people who are pre-diabetic will develop diabetes by almost 60%. Health People is the only Bronx-based agency approved by the Centers for Disease Control to provide the DPP and the first in the nation to train residents of public housing to teach this highly effective course to other public housing residents. “It’s great for us to begin our anniversary celebrating the accomplishments of public housing residents,” said Chris Norwood, founder and executive Director of Health People. “It brings us back to our beginning. When Health People started in 1990 as a women’s AIDS peer education organization, a graduate of that first class who lived in public housing started the first AIDS support group at Lincoln Hospital.”
Other Health People highlights of the last 25 years include:
● Asthma Home Visit Program – reduced the number of emergency room visits of children with asthma by 50 percent.● AIDS Self-Care Courses – helped to prolong the quality and quantity of life of South Bronx AIDS patients. ● Diabetes Prevention Program – the graduating class of participants lost a total of 6.3 percent of their average body weight, through healthy eating and exercise. ● Kids-Helping-Kids Mentoring Program – Older teens with sick and missing parents mentor younger kids facing similar challenges, resulting in virtually no school dropouts and almost no attraction to drug use compared with similar kids.
“I believe that Health People has taken peer education further than any organization in the U.S., constantly demonstrating the ‘triple win:’ better health for its highest need residents, a new community belief in the possibilities of good health and unexpected careers and satisfaction for people who never thought they could be health educators,” said Hal Strelnick, M.D., Health People’s Board Chair and Director of the Institute for Community and Collaborative Health at Montefiore Hospital.
Ruby Garner is a perfect example. She is an HIV-positive Bronx woman who today teaches AIDS Self-Care Courses in homeless shelters and other places with high need residents. She also serves as the Chair of Health People’s Advisory Board.
According to Ms. Garner, “When I joined Health People, I believed in its mission to empower the disenfranchised, build their self-esteem, and create a vision for the future that included good health and behavior. Thank you Health People for your 25 years of loyalty to me and many others through your commitment to empowerment and community change!”
Health People, founded by Norwood, is a major community health education and support organization in the South Bronx, the nation’s poorest urban Congressional District. Health People has implemented groundbreaking peer education, prevention and health education programs which received international recognition in 2005 when Norwood was one of 1,000 women from around the world chosen for a special Nobel Peace Prize nomination honoring women’s local work.
Other 25th anniversary activities will be scheduled over the course of the next year. Check www.healthpeople.org for updates.
About Health PeopleHealth People is a groundbreaking peer education, prevention and support organization in the South Bronx whose mission is to train and empower residents of communities overwhelmed by chronic disease and AIDS to become leaders and educators in effectively preventing ill health, hospitalization and unnecessary death.
Established in 1990 as a women’s AIDS prevention and support program, Health People has grown, using its peer-education model, to provide a full range of HIV/AIDS services for men, women and families. It also has conducted community asthma programs, New York’s first diabetes peer-educators program, and a community smoking cessation program. Health People’s Junior Peer program, Kids-Helping-Kids includes teens who are mentors for younger children with sick or missing parents.
For more information, please visit www.healthpeople.org.
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