Erie Family Health Center

As National Public Health Week draws to a close, Beats Per Minute wants to recognize a few individuals whose accomplishments have effectively shaped the field of public health as we know it today. There are three historic figures who have inspired generations of public health leaders:

Sara Josephine Baker (1873-1945)

Sara Josephine Baker’s contributions to public health cannot be summarized with one story or study. She graduated from the Woman’s Medical College of the New York Infirmary in 1898 and served as Assistant Commissioner of Health in New York by 1907. There she focused on midwife training, basic hygiene, health education and the reduction of infant mortality. Baker supplied pasteurized milk for indigent families, developed a program to teach young girls basic infant care, allowing them to care for their siblings while their mothers worked, and created a school health program that was replicated across the country. When Baker retired in 1923, New York City had the lowest infant mortality rate of any metropolitan U.S. city. Baker’s efforts were instrumental in linking economic and educational factors to medical care and poor health outcomes. Her work at New York City’s Bureau of Child Hygiene served as a model for the United States Children’s Bureau.

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Earlier this week, Beats Per Minute took you into the world of a very important public health issue: health disparities in underserved communities. Cancer, diabetes and oral health – all of these issues hit very close to home for the communities served by Erie Family Health Center. For Erie, creating a healthier America begins at the community level, where care and prevention interventions are specifically designed to meet the needs of our patients and community members. Today, in honor of National Public Health Week, Beats Per Minute would like to give you the inside scoop on those Erie programs designed to reduce and eliminate health disparities experienced in our community.

Cancer

For the patients in Erie’s communities, early screening for breast and cervical cancer can be problematic, especially for those who are underinsured or uninsured and without the funds to pay for the procedures. Erie has a long-standing commitment to educating women on the importance of getting screened and working to provide better access for screening, either through Erie or external referrals. In early 2008, Erie became a lead agency for the Illinois Breast and Cervical Cancer Program (IBCCP). Through this program, Erie can provide either through our facilities or outside agencies free screening for breast and cervical cancers to women who qualify for the program. In the first half of this fiscal year alone, Erie enrolled nearly 400 women in the IBCCP program and provided culturally competent education about the importance of screening to nearly 12,000 people.

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If our ancestors had the ability to teleport through space and time to today, what do you think their first reaction would be?  Would they be floored at our ability to travel thousands of miles in a few short hours?  Would they be awed at our capability to acquire the answer to any question with a few strokes of a keyboard?  Most importantly would they be able to decipher the differences between Twitter, Flickr, Facebook and MySpace?

What would really blow the minds of our friends from the past would probably be the strides that science has made in the advancement of health care.  Besides keeping us in bed for a day or two, the common cold does not equal imminent death anymore.  Thanks to doctors and scientists across the globe, we’ve developed vaccines for many of the killers of the past, including polio, measles and rubella.  Today, the World Health Organization celebrates World Health Day while the American Public Health Organization tributes this whole week as National Public Health Week.  Although health care is being honored all around us, there are some places in the world where the most forgotten diseases are still present and continuing to take lives every day.

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The American Public Health Association has designated this week National Public Health Week. Since 1995, the United States has used this week to highlight the importance of public health and the need for improved health in our country. This year’s theme is ‘A Healthier America: One Community at a Time.’  This theme resonates with community-based health organizations, like Erie Family Health Center. For Erie, creating a healthier America begins at the community level, where care and prevention can be designed specifically for the needs of the local community.

For Erie and other public health advocates around the country, one of the most important health issues facing America today are the  health disparities that exist in medically underserved communities. That means that certain groups of people in our country—like those with lower incomes—experience health problems at greater rates than the general population.  At Beats Per Minute, we would like to highlight a few of the health disparities that hit home in the communities that Erie serves.

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