Tagged: public health

Needle Exchange

4:00 pm

Wed April 3, 2013

University of Miami Medical Students Push For Needle-Exchange Program

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Credit Hansel Tookes

These needles were found under an I-95 overpass in Overtown.

Credit University of Miami

UM medical students Chanelle Diaz, Hansel Tookes, Dyani Loo and Marek Hirsch want to see a needle-exchange program in Florida.

By Marva Hinton

Arts

3:09 pm

Mon April 1, 2013

Fighting HIV/AIDS With Music, Theater In Honduras

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Credit David Rochkind / Pulitzer Center

Women meet during a support group for those who have HIV and their friends and family on Jan. 17 in Triunfo de la Cruz. These kinds of support groups are an important part of making people feel comfortable with their diagnosis and seeking treatment.

Credit David Rochkind / Pulitzer Center

Daily life on the streets of a Garifuna community Jan. 25 in Corozal, Honduras. Various factors have contributed to a high HIV rate among the Garifuna, including poverty and migration.

Credit David Rochkind / Pulitzer Center

Santos Anael Martinez cooks food in his home Jan. 13 in Sambo Creek. Santos,a fisherman, is HIV-positive; his wife is a community health worker who visits people living with HIV.

Credit David Rochkind / Pulitzer Center

A view of a cemetery in Sambo Creek. Before medicines were made widely available in the early 2000s, scores of people in the Garifuna community died from AIDS. According to local NGOs, the death rate has dropped dramatically.

Credit David Rochkind / Pulitzer Center

Women meet during a support group for those who have HIV and their friends and family on Jan. 17 in Triunfo de la Cruz. These kinds of support groups are an important part of making people feel comfortable with their diagnosis and seeking treatment.

Credit David Rochkind / Pulitzer Center

Anatolia Ramirez waits outside the home of one of the HIV-positive women she visits in Sambo Creek. Ramirez is a community health worker who visits people with HIV in order to check up on them, and to offer assistance and support.

Credit David Rochkind / Pulitzer Center

Francisca Guity, who is HIV-postive, sits with her child in her home Jan. 20 in Sambo Creek.

Credit David Rochkind / Pulitzer Center

Nolvia Cruz waits to be seen at an HIV/AIDS health clinic on Jan. 25 in La Ceiba. Nolvia is open about her diagnosis, but many people are afraid to go to the clinic for fear that someone they know will see them and gossip about their HIV status.

Credit David Rochkind / Pulitzer Center

A community theater group performs at a festival Jan. 25 in Corozal. The theater group uses traditional Garifuna music and culture in its productions to help teach about HIV prevention and stigma.

Credit David Rochkind / Pulitzer Center

Carmen Suyapa (right) receives a visit from Anatolia Ramirez on Jan. 21 in La Ceiba, Honduras. Carmen felt so rejected by her family after she was diagnosed with HIV that she briefly considered committing suicide.

By Jens Erik Gould

Originally published on Fri March 29, 2013 11:14 am

Listen

In the village of Corozal in Honduras, men ready boats for fishing excursions and boys play soccer on a beach lined with thatched huts.

On a sandy lot next to the town's main street, two teenage boys begin playing drums while women sing. For centuries, this has been the signature sound of celebration for the Garifuna, an Afro-Caribbean people on the Atlantic coast of Central America. Now this music has an additional purpose: to prevent HIV.

Public Health

10:00 am

Fri February 1, 2013

Poverty, Access Issues Blamed For Poor Health In Broward's Black Communities

Credit Kolonoj on thepeoplespoetrycorner.blogspot.com

BABIES AT RISK: Black residents of Broward County experience higher rates of infant mortality than whites or Hispanics, according to a new Urban League health report.

By Rick Stone

Black residents of Broward County are much more likely than whites or Hispanics to experience infant mortality, obesity or HIV/AIDS, according to an alarming new report from the Urban League, and nobody should try to blame the results on poor lifestyle choices .

According to the Urban League's Danielle Doss-Brown, it's unarguably the result of poverty and lack of access to insurance and health care. Complicating it is a shortage of sources of healthy food in many black communities.