While I was at the VA Hospital this week I spent some of my spare time looking through patient education handouts for some that I could use to hand out to the ladies I see during street/SRO outreach. I’m hoping to set up a mini hypertension screening service for the women we see regularly, and it would mostly entail weekly blood pressure monitoring, patient education, and referral for further treatment. I was inspired to do this while learning about the danger of chronic hypertension, and how it disproportionately affects underserved communities for a variety of reasons, one of them being lack of access to health care.
While looking through these handouts I was struck by how little these recommendations were relevant to where my clients are coming from. Most of the women I see rarely leave a two block area, live hand to mouth, and are dealing with daily stressors such as domestic violence and fear of cops. Advice such as picking healthier choices from the grocery store or signing up for a gym membership presupposes resources like money, and recommendations for taking time out to relieve stress by finding a quiet place alone, putting an icepack on your forehead, and listening to soothing music, presupposes resources like personal space, a freezer and a boom box. I imagine my ladies looking at these pamphlets and experiencing an increase in stress just by all the reminders of the things they don’t have.
This is not to say that I think that health education is a lost cause for the women I serve. In fact, I think one of the problems is that we assume that because they have more pressing concerns, that they don’t care about taking care of their health. Most of us have more pressing concerns than preventative health care measures, but many of us still try to alter some of our actions to protect ourselves of dying of heart failure in the future. The truth is that health care education is sorely lacking in these communities because the only time they see health care practitioners is when there is an emergency issue that forces them to the hospital. Those cases aren’t when most practitioners are advising to exercise thirty minutes a day and eat your veggies.
So I printed out the most helpful information and will be endeavoring to create patient education that applies to people engaged in survival living. A lot of harm reduction is based on preventing disease transmission, or devastating infections, but basic stuff like heart disease and diabetes is still a huge risk to these populations and ignoring this is just going to ensure they die of arterial disease instead of hepatitis. You know, like most of us.
However, this is not a task to be done alone, I know there are better minds than mine out there so don’t be too shy to throw in suggestions for this project in the comments. This can be anything from slogans, to issues I should include, or anything really! I’m also going to be looking for someone with art ability to help make goofy health-ed cartoons.
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