Author: Carlie Charles

Carlie Charles

Thomas, Naomi. (October 9, 2018) How church communities can help lower African-Americans’ blood pressure.CNN. https://www.cnn.com/2018/10/09/health/church-hypertension-blood-pressure-intervention-study/index.html (Accessed June, 27, 2019)

• Naomi Thomas wrote an article that discusses an upstream intervention strategy of the intentions to lower and mediate the rates of hypertension in the black community. The study took a different approach and geared towards a faith-based intervention and situated their study in 32 churches across New York City. The study consisted of 373 people and they were split into two group—one received the intervention and the other was categorized into the control group. The group that received the intervention was dedicated 11 90-minute sessions held weekly and focused on educating individuals of healthy life choices. In addition, the intervention group received 3 monthly motivation phone calls to report their progress in lifestyle changes. The control group received only one session educating on lifestyle changes in high blood pressure and the other ten focused on a variety of other topics such as fire safety and Alzheimer’s along with no motivational phone calls from leaders. Church member’s blood pressure was recorded upon initiation of the program, six months, and nine months since the program started. The intervention group had a systolic blood pressure decrease from 5.8 to 5.3 mmHg.

• According to  Ogedegbe, the director of NYU Langone’s Center for Healthful Behavior Change, clinically speaking, the reduction was to observed as a significant decrease. Centralizing the focus groups in the church, members felt more inclined to be cooperative because the church created space for members to share their progress and challenges with the comfort of freedom from judgment.

• The use of the church was significant in the design of the study. Kiser, senior program director at the Interfaith Health Program mentioned that “Faith-based settings are sources of trusted information.” She also mentioned that “It strengthens disease prevention and health promotion activities.” The study also implemented the use of lay health advisors— which are members of the community who volunteer to help for a cause—was an important aspect of the study because it involved regular people in the community an absolved the need to have doctors or clinic officials to conduct the focus groups. Lay Health advisors were also important to consider in the black community because of the culture of how the community beliefs shape around people who are considered strangers means that they are less inclined to absorb the information given by such individuals. In addition, this was not the first time an effort like this was introduced. Thomas also mentioned of a study that was published by the New England Journal of Medicine discovered that when health educators were placed in locations such as barbershops, 63.6% showed lowered blood pressure to a healthy state. Thomas stressed that using the community as agents to promote health with the knowledge and use of medicine, then increased the level of health and health benefits would be observed.

• The church in the black community can play a crucial role in the role of the diffusion of innovations. In the black community, the church is a central component of social life. Pastors and church leaders can play the role of the innovators because they have substantial power to influence the entire congregation to appeal to new ideas. If the intervention was adopted by widely recognized black pastors in the black community such as Bishop T. D. Jakes, initially many of his followers would adopt the idea and other pastors would adopt the idea as well because of the flow of the hierarchy and this would spread to churches across the nation.

Vera, Amir. (June 8, 2019) Texas governor signs law increasing the age to buy tobacco products to 21. Cable News Network (CNN). Available at https://www.cnn.com/2019/06/08/health/texas-new-tobacco-law/index.html (Accessed June 12, 2019).

a. What are the person/place/time trends described in the article?

This article focuses on teens in high school specifically Texas teens and the rise of e-cigarette smoking for individuals in this age group. At an attempt to lower the rates of addiction, Texas Governor Greg Abbott has signed a bill that would increase the legal sale of tobacco to age 21 effective September 1, 2019.

 b. What is the significance/importance of these trends? What can we learn from them? What are the implications for planning public health strategies?  

According to Riegelman, 90% of adults, primarily females, who smoked began before the age of 18 or even younger (2019). Recently, interventions included the discontinuation of commercials directed towards minors and harsher penalties for those who sell to children under 18 (Riegelman 2019). As a result, studies have shown to reduce adolescent smoking. Increasing the age in reference to Riegelman will positively affect the prevalence pool and decrease the prevalence rate of those who are diagnosed with lung cancer in relation to smoking. Since lung cancer isn’t developed the instant someone begins smoking, this is an intervention at the primary level on behalf of Texas and other states likewise to limit tobacco use in the first place.

c. Pay attention to how the data are presented. Do you agree with the conclusions drawn by the authors of the article?

Amir Vera presents most of his information through the use of rates as percentages. He further solidifies his claims by quoting people who are experts in the teen smoking epidemic such as Shelby Massey who is affiliated with the American Heart Association and the CDC. To provide an even firmer claim, there are videos associated with his article that discuss the testimonies of teachers who are at the forefront of witnessing this issue and the explanation of the data of collected from The National Youth Tobacco Survey and the Surgeon General. Personally, I agree with the picture that the author is attempting to paint. Smoking has been proven to be a fatal addiction and not much can prove otherwise. With the invention of e-cigarettes and kid enticing vape flavors, more teens have picked up the habit over the past several years. Even in my high school, I witnessed how just from freshman year to senior year how more and more students were facing disciplinary actions for smoking e-cigarettes on campus.

d. What other information, not included in the article, would you want to better understand the implications and importance of these trends?

The video that was associated with this post was the only visual data that represented. Although the video hit crucial points of the article, it did not discuss what was going on in Texas but rather in Connecticut. Vera mentions in his article that supporters of the bill believe that raising the age would decrease addiction (2019). Specifically stating who the supporters are could have helped to understand the groups of people being affected or what experts have to say about teen smoking. More visual data such as graphs and charts that represent the percentages that Vera spoke about in comparison to a timeline could have shown just how much teen smoking has increased and why a need for the bill to go into action was crucial. Furthermore, I believe data presented on the DALYs –the Disability-adjusted life years– on teen smoking and its effect on the population could provide information on the health status of the country’s younger population (Riegelman 2019.)

 e. Do you trust this source? Why or why not? Provide specific details to justify your response.

CNN is a national news outlet and has been around for about 40 years. The author in the article used facts from respected sources such as the CDC to support his claim. In addition, personal fact checking has proved for the information to be factual. Vera included hyperlinks within his article that directed you to the specific content he was quoting and it led me to the specificity of the Bill that was proposed and the CDC website.

f. Comment on anything else that you want to talk about in the article.

Though this article was short and only a few paragraphs long. It is crucial information and a win in the field of Public Health. Tobacco companies have used many formats to target children to start smoking in efforts that these children will continue on in their adult life. Personally, just as the age of drinking was raised, applying the same efforts to smoking causes it to lose its appeal once the children have grown into adults. I also believe that at 21, the pressure of peer pressure isn’t as severe and that further adds to the efforts of preventing children from smoking in the first place.

References

Riegelman, R. K., & Kirkwood, B. (2019). Public health 101: Improving community health. Retrieved June 12, 2019.