African American Health Network gears up to fight disparities
Health Matters
Health Matters
Participants in the AAHN planning
session: Standing: Hershey
Barnett-Bridges (l-r), Karen Johnson,
Doris Franklin, Dr. Mamadou Ndiaye
and Dr. Earlise Ward. Sitting: Dr.
Gloria Hawkins (l-r), Dr. Gloria
Johnson-Powell, Dr. Michelle
DeBose. Also attending the planning
sessions but not shown: Betty Banks,
Lucretia Sullivan-Wade, Shelley
King-Curry, Gale Johnson, Earnestine
Moss, Dr. Eva Vivian and Carola
Peterson Gaines.
session: Standing: Hershey
Barnett-Bridges (l-r), Karen Johnson,
Doris Franklin, Dr. Mamadou Ndiaye
and Dr. Earlise Ward. Sitting: Dr.
Gloria Hawkins (l-r), Dr. Gloria
Johnson-Powell, Dr. Michelle
DeBose. Also attending the planning
sessions but not shown: Betty Banks,
Lucretia Sullivan-Wade, Shelley
King-Curry, Gale Johnson, Earnestine
Moss, Dr. Eva Vivian and Carola
Peterson Gaines.
By Jonathan Gramling
Part 2 of 2
When the African American Health Network of Dane County (AAHN) was established by Denise Carty, the
Wisconsin minority health officer at that time and Earnise Williams who worked at St. Mary’s Hospital and is now a Ph.
D. candidate at the UW-Madison, the network was seen primarily as a way for African American health professionals to
get together, share information and provide support to each other.
It soon was pulled into “active duty” on the front lines in the fight against the many illnesses and health problems
that disproportionately affect the African American community. The members felt that they had accomplished a lot in
the intervening years. The Network members felt that they had made a significant contribution to the decline in Black
infant mortality in Dane County. Now some six years later, the members of AAHN felt it was time to reflect on where
they had been and which direction they wanted to take the network. On two consecutive Saturdays in September, the
Network met at the Harambee Center to develop a strategic plan.
While the Network is looking at a new direction, it isn’t abandoning its traditional core mission. “The mission is to
foster networking among Black health professionals and community advocates to promote health education, healthy
lifestyles and advocacy,” said Michelle DeBose Ph.D., the current Wisconsin minority health officer and chair of AAHN
at the conclusion of the planning sessions. “We have four core functions: research, advocacy, leadership and
education. With that, we have identified some priorities around that. Those priorities will be in terms of increasing our
visibility to the community.”
The most important value that the members of the Network hold dear is the empowerment of the African
American community in the area of health care. “We need to be promoting health in the community,” DuBose
emphasized. “We should be looking at healthy lifestyles in our community and we need to be thinking about how
people can become advocates for their own health. We can show them how to do that and encourage them. But the
community has to become owners of their own health. We want to be the organization that is well-known and trusted
in the African American community so that if they have questions related to access to care, chronic disease issues or
how to prevent chronic disease, we want them to know that we are a resource for them. We don’t have all of the
answers, but we most certainly would be able to help maneuver them to the places they may need to go.”
One of the ways to accomplish that is for the Network to act as an agent for the African American community in
interfacing with the broader community in general and the health community in particular, especially as it relates to
research on African American health problems. “We have to look at the history of the United States,” De Bose said. “So
often, our community was perhaps invited into some medical experimentation where there was no community leader
saying ‘Yes, this is okay. No this is not okay.’ So to have us in this community to say what is a good thing for the
community to participate in versus bad will allow the community to start being active participants in research. We
want those groups to know they can access us to get to the community. How we will do that is we have designed and
structured ourselves so that we will have a committee that looks at research and practice.”
“The other piece about understanding how to participate in research is knowing that not all research means that you are going to take a pill or you are going
to get a shot or we are going to take something from you as in taking blood or a specimen from you,” DeBose said. “But we want to actually engage with you so
we can understand your relationship as it accounts to being in the health care system. We want to know how you access the health care system. We want to know
how you get health information. Health information technology is getting ready to blow up. And we want to be on the cutting edge of that. We want to be able to
engage our community with that. We want to make sure that the information that is out there actually gets to our community. A lot of people depend on the fact
that everyone should have computers. Everyone doesn’t have computers. But how else do they get health information? Do they get it from sharing a story,
hearing someone else’s experience of living with a chronic disease or learning about breast feeding or actually their own experience with breast feeding? Those
are the kind of things that we want to make sure that the community’s voice is heard.”
There is a lot of expertise within the Network that it wants to share with the African American community and the community at large. In its expanded role, it
will help to ensure that health information is presented to the African American community in a culturally relevant manner. “We have people around the table
who are nutritionists and dieticians,” DeBose said as an example. “They can provide workshops. We want to institute a speakers’ bureau. And so when people are
coming out of the doctor’s office and they are telling them that they need to cut back on their sodium or they need to modify their diet because their blood sugar
is elevated or they are in a pre-diabetes stage, we have experts around this table who are certified diabetes educators and nutritionists who actually spend their
day researching and understanding how to get this information to the community. That’s what we are here for. We want to be able to sort out those changes
people are having to make in their diet and as you mention, soul food, which historically comes from the African American tradition, it is also about
understanding that food is a ritualistic part of who we are. And so, we will never pull away from the table. But we need to know how to be at the table and eat
healthy, which means modifying some of the things that we have traditionally been easting. When you look at changing from pork to something else, we want to
be able to help the community understand how to do that.”
In order to get its work done, especially in the area of outreach and education, the Network is looking to collaborate with other community partners to reach
the greatest number of people within the African American community. “We will look at our membership to determine if people want to be members or
participants with the network,” De Bose said. “That could be seen as a collaborator or as a partner with some activities that we will be having. We also want to be
that bridge to the community for the university, community-based researchers or the public health community. We’ll have a committee that looks at outreach and
education. They probably have the greatest job in making sure this rolls out in a fashion that really includes the community, getting them at the table and letting
them know that they too have a voice in the network, that it isn’t just health professionals that are farming decisions about how we look at health care. But also
they have a big job in educating the community on what they need to know. We’re going to start looking at community conversations. This will be done by
engaging the community in forums. We’ll be partnering, hopefully, with the State of Black Madison Coalition.”
And in order to attain a high level of visibility in the African American community, the Network is planning to work more with media outlets that cater to the
African American community. “We know that the vast part of the community do listen to those sources and we want to be supportive of media that targets us in a
positive light,” De Bose said. “As you can imagine, the positive things that are being done in our communities, not just Madison and Dane County, but throughout
the nation, isn’t talked about much in the mainstream media. It doesn’t target us in a very positive light. We want to be able to talk about how we can improve the
numbers in terms of increasing our lifespan for our community.”
In the coming months, look to the African American Health Network to take a more visible and proactive role in influencing health and safety trends in the
African American community. “We want to make sure that African American men and women are not the victims of domestic violence,” De Bose emphasized.
“We want to make sure that our teenagers are not a part of that trend of having high rates of sexually-transmitted disease. We know we have a huge job to do, but
we are committed and passionate about the health of our community and if we don’t do it, no one else really will be doing it. There are a lot of people who talk
about how they are eliminating the burden of health among African American communities, but we can’t see it. We can only see what we have done in our
community.”
There is much work to be done to ensure that African Americans enjoy the same quality of life as everyone else and live to a ripe old age to help nurture
the grandchildren and be sages of advice to generations coming up. The African American Health Network stands ready to help make it happen.
to get a shot or we are going to take something from you as in taking blood or a specimen from you,” DeBose said. “But we want to actually engage with you so
we can understand your relationship as it accounts to being in the health care system. We want to know how you access the health care system. We want to know
how you get health information. Health information technology is getting ready to blow up. And we want to be on the cutting edge of that. We want to be able to
engage our community with that. We want to make sure that the information that is out there actually gets to our community. A lot of people depend on the fact
that everyone should have computers. Everyone doesn’t have computers. But how else do they get health information? Do they get it from sharing a story,
hearing someone else’s experience of living with a chronic disease or learning about breast feeding or actually their own experience with breast feeding? Those
are the kind of things that we want to make sure that the community’s voice is heard.”
There is a lot of expertise within the Network that it wants to share with the African American community and the community at large. In its expanded role, it
will help to ensure that health information is presented to the African American community in a culturally relevant manner. “We have people around the table
who are nutritionists and dieticians,” DeBose said as an example. “They can provide workshops. We want to institute a speakers’ bureau. And so when people are
coming out of the doctor’s office and they are telling them that they need to cut back on their sodium or they need to modify their diet because their blood sugar
is elevated or they are in a pre-diabetes stage, we have experts around this table who are certified diabetes educators and nutritionists who actually spend their
day researching and understanding how to get this information to the community. That’s what we are here for. We want to be able to sort out those changes
people are having to make in their diet and as you mention, soul food, which historically comes from the African American tradition, it is also about
understanding that food is a ritualistic part of who we are. And so, we will never pull away from the table. But we need to know how to be at the table and eat
healthy, which means modifying some of the things that we have traditionally been easting. When you look at changing from pork to something else, we want to
be able to help the community understand how to do that.”
In order to get its work done, especially in the area of outreach and education, the Network is looking to collaborate with other community partners to reach
the greatest number of people within the African American community. “We will look at our membership to determine if people want to be members or
participants with the network,” De Bose said. “That could be seen as a collaborator or as a partner with some activities that we will be having. We also want to be
that bridge to the community for the university, community-based researchers or the public health community. We’ll have a committee that looks at outreach and
education. They probably have the greatest job in making sure this rolls out in a fashion that really includes the community, getting them at the table and letting
them know that they too have a voice in the network, that it isn’t just health professionals that are farming decisions about how we look at health care. But also
they have a big job in educating the community on what they need to know. We’re going to start looking at community conversations. This will be done by
engaging the community in forums. We’ll be partnering, hopefully, with the State of Black Madison Coalition.”
And in order to attain a high level of visibility in the African American community, the Network is planning to work more with media outlets that cater to the
African American community. “We know that the vast part of the community do listen to those sources and we want to be supportive of media that targets us in a
positive light,” De Bose said. “As you can imagine, the positive things that are being done in our communities, not just Madison and Dane County, but throughout
the nation, isn’t talked about much in the mainstream media. It doesn’t target us in a very positive light. We want to be able to talk about how we can improve the
numbers in terms of increasing our lifespan for our community.”
In the coming months, look to the African American Health Network to take a more visible and proactive role in influencing health and safety trends in the
African American community. “We want to make sure that African American men and women are not the victims of domestic violence,” De Bose emphasized.
“We want to make sure that our teenagers are not a part of that trend of having high rates of sexually-transmitted disease. We know we have a huge job to do, but
we are committed and passionate about the health of our community and if we don’t do it, no one else really will be doing it. There are a lot of people who talk
about how they are eliminating the burden of health among African American communities, but we can’t see it. We can only see what we have done in our
community.”
There is much work to be done to ensure that African Americans enjoy the same quality of life as everyone else and live to a ripe old age to help nurture
the grandchildren and be sages of advice to generations coming up. The African American Health Network stands ready to help make it happen.