Providing care in a health and food desert
The story of those dedicated to the "Engage with Heart" outreach program in Baltimore, an initiative to enhance heart health within the African American community.
By Goran Mijuk, photos by Adriano Biondo, video by Kirby Griffin.
At least once a week, Creala Mickens is reaching out to the black community in Baltimore to inform people about the offerings of the Zeta Center for Healthy and Active Aging and inform them about an ongoing heart health program.
Ms. Mickens, like her colleague Kejuana Walton, is one of around a dozen Community Health Ambassadors for Engage with Heart – a bespoke program that aims to improve heart health in Baltimore, an East Coast city close to Washington with around 590 000 inhabitants.
Baltimore, like many cities in the United States, is struggling to provide adequate healthcare and healthy food to tens of thousands of people.
Among the most vulnerable groups are African Americans, who besides high poverty rates are also suffering from structural challenges, which make it difficult for many to get access to medicines, care and health education.
To improve healthcare in general, but also to strengthen heart health in particular, Novartis partnered with the Global Coalition on Aging to create Engage with Heart – a holistic program with the goal to improve heart health in the city and provide care for older adults.
Engage with Heart is leveraging the networks of several local churches and community centers such as Zeta. It also includes partners such as the Baltimore City Health Department, Black Church Food Security Network as well as the Johns Hopkins School of Nursing, which is providing heart health monitoring services.
The program, which has also found political support from Maryland Governor Wes Moore, revolves around a community engagement model that has proven successful during the pandemic and rests heavily on the work of the Community Health Ambassadors.
Among the key activities of the healthcare ambassadors is engaging the community members to increase physical activity.
Another important element is health education. For this, Creala Mickens and Kejuana Walton have, for example, developed a heart bingo, which includes several key aspects of how to improve heart health through healthy eating habits, increased fitness and regular check-ups.
Community members such as 69-year-old Clayton Price cherish the fitness and education activity. The Vietnam veteran comes to Zeta two or three times a week together with his wife. He is also advocating for the center among his friends.
Another regular visitor is 76-year-old Viala G. Crowder, who has been coming to Zeta since 2015. Besides the social networking, she cherishes the heart health education and the opportunity to get a healthy meal.
Engage with Heart provides Creala Mickens, a retired civil servant who worked at the Social Security Administration for over 35 years, with the opportunity to give back to society and apply her experience as a caretaker for her recently deceased mother.
“The passion with which I helped my mother in her final days is the same passion with which I try to help the community here at Zeta and elsewhere as part of Engage with Heart. The feedback from the community is overwhelmingly positive. Just today, someone gave me a hug, thanking us for the help we can provide.”
