Toward the middle of the Second Annual National Urban Health Conference was the Friday event at the Harlem Hospital Center (HHC) where a panel of doctors focused one environmental issues and men?s health?make that Black men?s health.
Black men?s health was stressed because they are the most imperiled and the last to seek medical attention, according to the panelists.
?Black men are the last to go to the doctor?s office and the first to go to the hospital,? said Dr. Maurice Wright, medical director at HHC, who moderated the forum.
Lloyd Williams, CEO and president of the Greater Harlem Chamber of Commerce and one of the conference?s sponsors, echoed Wright?s sentiments while placing the forum in context with other events of the four days.
Dr. Zafar Sharif, director of the hospital?s department of psychiatry, went even further on the disparity, explaining why Black men were reluctant to visit the doctor on a regular basis.
?There is an element of distrust from minorities,? Sharif began, citing several of the experiments conducted on Black Americans by various institutions. ?A lot of this is related to who is in charge of the research,? he said. ?If there are such studies, it should be done by community hospitals rather than academic centers.?
Sharif devoted most of his time discussing the ill effects of depression as it relates to other health problems.
?If you are depressed before you have a heart attack, it is more dangerous,? Sharif said. Alcohol, he added, is abused more than drugs, all of which are imbibed to ease depression but only accentuate the problem. ?There is no one cause of depression,? he said.
Dr. Orlando Adamson, HHC associate medical director and director of the department of ambulatory care, devoted his time to the prison industrial complex and the number of young Black men caught in the throes of the criminal justice system.
?One in four Black men are in the criminal control system,? he said. This critical condition mirrors what author Michelle Alexander has written about in her book ?The New Jim Crow,? in which she claims that there are more Black men in prison today than were in slavery in the 1850s.
Adamson said that the bulk of those in prison today are there for nonviolent crimes, mostly related to violation of drug laws, ?particularly the Rockefeller drug laws,? he stressed.
Reversing this trend, he said, is a monumental challenge. ?But we?ve got to do something about the dropout rate among our Black youth,? he lamented. ?We need programs to address those folks at risk?to get them out of the vicious cycle.?
Wright emphasized the need for early intervention in the lives of Black children. ?We?ve got to get to them while they are still very young,? he said. ?I?m concerned about the prevalence of soft drinks in the schools?they shouldn?t be called soft drinks, because a heavy intake of sugar is just as bad as alcohol.? He said vending machines in schools ?is a killer.?
During his PowerPoint presentation, Dr. Aubrey Clarke, associate chief of the division of cardiology at HHC, dwelled on the importance of a healthy cardiovascular system.
?We have to reduce the risk factors that lead to strokes, heart attacks, diabetes and other ailments,? he began. Obesity, hypertension, tobacco and a sedentary lifestyle are all risk factors that could be overcome or at least ?modified,? he explained.
He said that cardiovascular disease is the single largest killer in central Harlem. While there are some factors that are inevitable, such as age, gender and family history, there are ways to combat and minimize the disease.
?There is primary and secondary prevention,? Clarke said, ?because the cardiovascular system affects the entire body.?
Spiritual health also has an impact on the whole body, Williams noted, the subject of a forum planned for Sunday at the conclusion of the National Urban Health Conference.
? 2012 New York Amsterdam News. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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