Tanner Health System’s Get Healthy, Live Well initiative hosted an educational health event at Mt. Pleasant Missionary Baptist Church in Franklin on June 28 as part of an ongoing effort to reduce health disparities and promote healthy lifestyles.
“This was a great opportunity to provide educational health information and offer people a chance to check their health and assess their risk of certain health problems,” said Mahaya Clark, community coordinator for Get Healthy, Live Well. “Churches are a good way to reach people in a rural area.”
The event was part of a series of health events being held at local African-American churches in Carroll, Haralson and Heard counties to help raise awareness of health disparities by focusing on healthy living. So far, four churches have held health fairs, and another is scheduled for later this summer at Piney Grove Missionary Baptist Church in Carrollton.
The event was full of fun, music and healthy activities for all ages. Activities and education at the event included:
- Clinical health assessments
- Diabetes risk assessments
- Yoga demonstrations
- Kids corner physical activities and fun
- Healthy cooking demonstrations
- A “smoothie bike” demonstration
- Tobacco cessation educational booth
- Church community garden dedication
- Behavioral health information through Willowbrooke at Tanner
Nursing students from University of West Georgia and West Georgia Technical College were on hand to help out and to experience working with community members outside the walls of a clinic or hospital.
About 25 people attended the event in Franklin at the church, which is led by Pastor Chris Bonner.
These events being held at African-American churches are part of a longer-term effort to assess health and promote wellness through Tanner Health System’s Get Healthy, Live Well initiative.
“This event gave us the opportunity to see where people stand in terms of their health now and provide information to help them make positive changes,” said Clark. “Then, one year from now, we will follow up again to see their progress.”
Tanner Health System’s Get Healthy, Live Well initiative is working to promote a healthy lifestyle and prevent chronic disease for residents of Carroll, Haralson and Heard counties by decreasing health disparities, reducing obesity rates, eliminating tobacco use, increasing physical activity and improving nutrition through a variety of evidence-based program options. Get Healhty, Live Well believes in the value of working to educate community members on healthy living and ways to take little steps that can have a large, positive impact on individual health.The initiative is funded by a Partnership for Community Health Improvement grant from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
More information is available online at www.GetHealthyLiveWell.org and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/tannerhealthsys.