Friday, December 6

SU and LSU Ag Center programs target health in rural, urban Louisiana

Baton Rouge, LA - The residents of Louisiana and Mississippi have the worst health in the United States, according to the United Health Foundation’s America’s Health Rankings.
The states tied for 49th place in health indicators in 2012. They also rank at the top — Mississippi first and Louisiana second — of Poverty in USA’s national list for poverty.

Two programs in Louisiana are targeting poor health profiles: Healthy Communities in West Carroll Parish and HealthyBR in East Baton Rouge Parish. Those parishes, located in nearly opposite ends of the state, may seem completely different. West Carroll Parish is rural, for instance, while East Baton Rouge Parish is urban.

Both parishes, however, exceed the national overall poverty rate of 14 percent. Both have adult obesity rates of 32 percent and a comparable prevalence of diabetes — 11 percent of East Baton Rouge residents and 13 percent in West Carroll.

In East Baton Rouge Parish, the Mayor’s Healthy City Initiative is taking a three-part approach to become healthier: HealthyBR, MedBR and the Healthy Innovation Center for Research. Several initiatives fall under HealthyBR, including Fresh Beginnings, a three-year project that strives to increase healthy food access and promote health and fitness education.

Fresh Beginnings grant coordinator Lyndsi Lambert said the project faces a complex combination of problems. Many Baton Rouge citizens are obese, have heart disease and diabetes, and are uninsured.

East Baton Rouge Parish has seven “food deserts” — low-income pockets more than a mile away from the nearest grocery store. This challenge is being tackled by the Food Access Policy Commission, which launched in February as part of Fresh Beginnings.

About 23 percent of the parish is food desert, according to Stephanie Broyles, commission member and assistant professor at Pennington Biomedical Research Center. The commission is studying the best ways to develop a business structure that can support more food options in areas of low access.

Broyles said while access to healthy foods does not automatically mean eating healthy, people cannot be expected to make healthy choices without access.
“Once that barrier is removed, then they bear a much larger responsibility for their health and how they respond to messages about the importance of making healthy decisions,” she said.

One approach to remove the food desert barrier is The Red Stick Mobile Farmers Market, part of the Fresh Beginnings program.  The mobile market operates on Wednesdays at the Scotlandville Library (9am-11am) and Star Hill Baptist Church (12:30pm - 2pm); and Thursdays at the Delmont Service Center (8:30am-10:30am) and the McKinley Alumni Center (12pm-2pm). Both SU and LSU Ag Centers are involved in educating the public on the benefits of eating locally grown fresh produce and maintaining a healthy lifestyle.

Located in Louisiana’s northeastern corner, West Carroll Parish ranks 33rd out of Louisiana’s 64 parishes for health. Just three years ago, however, it ranked ninth.
That decline is one reason West Carroll Parish was selected as the pilot location for Healthy Communities, an initiative that officially launched in October to improve health in rural Louisiana. It is a joint effort of Pennington Biomedical Research Center and the agricultural centers at LSU and Southern University.
Gina Eubanks, Southern University Ag Center vice chancellor for extension and LSU AgCenter associate vice chancellor, said Healthy Communities’ goal is to enhance residents’ health from every angle — eating habits, exercise, healthcare, recreational facilities and food access.

Southern and LSU extension agents in the parish will focus on demonstrating the importance of being healthy. One objective is making people more aware of health services in the parish. Because rural areas generally have fewer or more limited health services than cities, it is important to get people’s feedback and ensure they suit their needs, Eubanks said.

Educating and engaging residents is also crucial. “Health is very personal,” Eubanks said, meaning people need to both understand how making better lifestyle choices will benefit them and be equipped with practical knowledge.

Healthy Communities may be a “three to six year ordeal where it’s truly going to take chipping away ... to see what makes a difference,” said LSU AgCenter extension agent and Healthy Communities coordinator Monica Stewart. Eating healthy is not an option for many residents, a quarter of whom live in poverty. With only one gym and one park in the entire parish, there just is not much to do, so many residents lead a sedentary lifestyle, Stewart said.
For more information about HealthyBR, visit http://healthybr.com/. Healthy Communities is available on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/HealthyCommunitiesWestCarroll?ref=stream.
For the full story, visit the LSU Reveille at http://www.lsureveille.com/
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Contact:        
Bridget Udoh
(225) 771-5714

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