QUESTION
Council Member Schulman Discusses Women's Heart Health Initiatives with DOH
0:47:11
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163 sec
Council Member Lynn Schulman addresses women's heart health, questioning the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH) about the city's efforts to ensure access to heart-healthy practices and quality medical care, particularly focused on prevention. The response highlights initiatives like the Take the Pressure Off and the Public Health Corps program, aimed at improving hypertension control and cardiovascular mortality, especially among Black women who have the highest prevalence of hypertension in NYC.
Speaker 2
0:47:11
So heart can heart disease continues to be the leading cause of death for women.
0:47:15
What steps of the city and DOH MH taking to ensure that women in New York City have access to heart healthy practices and quality medical care, particularly in terms of prevention.
0:47:24
And then I have a I'm gonna have a follow-up to that, but
Speaker 4
0:47:27
thank you for that.
0:47:27
Yes, heart disease is the number one cause of death for women, both nationally and here in New York City.
0:47:35
It is an area of import of really intensive focus for us because hypertension and nutrition and foods security.
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Both are key areas of of opportunities for improvement.
0:47:51
And those are areas that really help to address the issue of cardiovascular disease.
0:47:56
I would say the areas that we focus on specifically or programs that we have focused on are to take the pressure off initiative.
0:48:03
That is a hypertension control initiative that is focused in the neighborhoods that have the highest cardiovascular mortality and highest rates of hypertension.
0:48:13
We do think it's incredibly important to note, again, that black women have the highest prevalence of hypertension in the whole entire city at 42%.
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So that's almost almost 1 and 2 black women who are adult type high blood pressure in New York City.
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So we see this as a huge issue.
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In the past, we've done work around nutrition and food security, as I mentioned, including access to healthy produce at lower costs.
0:48:39
We've also done work again around the take the pressure off initiative.
0:48:43
To increase both awareness and education and partner with community based organizations around it.
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And then the final thing I'll mention is our public health core program, which specifically allows for one on one coaching of community health workers with community members, and it's focused.
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This part of public health court is focused specifically on residents in Nitra, in the neighborhoods within Brooklyn, Queens, Manhattan and the Bronx that have some of the highest rates of chronic disease.
0:49:19
What we've seen in terms of outcomes in the history of that program, again, focused in nature.
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Is that there's been a significant improvement in self rated health for the participants in that program, which is really important, and significant improvements and hypertension control for the participants in that program.
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And again, that is a coaching program.
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It's also a healthcare navigation program where 1000 of members of the program actually got support in making sure they didn't have to pay for the healthcare that they needed to control their hypertension or other chronic diseases.