(Press-News.org)
Health happens where people work, live, play and worship, says Prof. Stacey Snelling, chair of the Department of Health Studies in American University’s College of Arts and Sciences. And that’s where the Healthy Schools, Healthy Communities Lab engages children, adults and older adults to tackle health inequities. Snelling received a three-year grant of $2.8 million from Novo Nordisk Inc. for health education and to grow the number of Black farmers producing locally grown fruit and vegetables. The goal is to improve local food supply chains and healthy foods options for residents in Wards 7 and 8.
“Obesity, high blood pressure and other chronic ailments that disproportionately affect residents in Wards 7 and 8 show how the food system is not serving all residents in Washington, D.C.,” Snelling said. “Transforming the food system is needed to improve health for all.”
In the United States, 40 million people are food insecure, according to Feeding America. Chronic conditions including obesity, diabetes, hypertension, heart disease and several types of cancer are associated with poor nutrition. According to Community Health Administration at DC Health, Wards 7 and 8 experience the starkest health disparities in the District, and 72 percent of residents are considered obese.
“Novo Nordisk is strongly committed to reducing the burden of chronic disease – and that includes partnering with community-based organizations in underserved communities to improve access to drivers of health and wellness, such as food security,” said Jennifer Duck, vice president of public affairs at Novo Nordisk Inc. “Dynamic programs such as this one have the potential to build a holistically healthier future for the next generation. We couldn’t be more excited to join American University in taking on these challenges in the District of Columbia.”
To expand agriculture and the supply chain, agricultural partners to the grant will create an apprentice and scholarship program for five urban youth every year to advance interest, knowledge and job training for Black and brown farmers. Training on regenerative agriculture practices and the establishment of hydroponic farms and smart greenhouses will take place, as well as a “Food Ambassadors” program of five mobile markets to serve residents and expand the distribution of locally grown produce.
As faith organizations are an important part of African American life in Wards 7 and 8, tapping their social support networks for health promotion and education has shown success. Partnerships with faith organizations will help residents with food assistance, nutrition counseling, and in addressing isolation among older adults through socialization over food.
In Ward 7, for example, Pastor Wil Stroman’s Urban Outreach Ministries is in a food desert of few grocery stores and fresh foods. Stroman, a partner to the Healthy Schools, Healthy Communities Lab, has been working to change this in his community by partnering with the lab to expand his ministry’s offerings. The new grant makes funds available to continue Stroman’s work and engage other faith-based groups.
“Working with new partners and accelerating the work of our existing ones will grow urban agriculture, the distribution of healthy foods, and increase education on healthy eating and disease prevention,” Snelling said.
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BOSTON – Ready or not, patients with cancer are increasingly likely to find themselves interacting with artificial intelligence technologies to schedule appointments, monitor their health, learn about their disease and its treatment, find support, and more. In a new paper in JCO Oncology Practice, bioethics researchers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute call on medical societies, government leaders, clinicians, and researchers to work together to ensure AI-driven healthcare preserves patient autonomy and respects human dignity.
The authors note that while AI has immense potential for expanding access to cancer care and improving the ...
Researchers at Weill Cornell Medicine have led a phase 1 trial of a new drug that delivers potent radiation therapy directly and specifically to cancer cells in patients with advanced prostate cancer. The clinical trial showed that the “radiopharmaceutical” was well tolerated and demonstrated promising antitumor activity, according to a new study published on Nov. 2 in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.
The radiopharmaceutical 225AC-J591 was administered in a single injection and consists of two parts: an antibody that helps find the cancer cells is linked to a molecule that delivers a deadly dose of radiation. Specifically, an antibody named J591 that ...
MINNEAPOLIS/ST. PAUL (11/03/2023) — Research led by the University of Minnesota Medical School identified a new pathway to combat cardiovascular disease. The study was recently published in Nature Cardiovascular Research.
The research team’s work identifies a molecule called TREM2 as a unique and therapeutically relevant pathway for the treatment of atherosclerosis—a common condition that develops when plaque builds up inside arteries—in preclinical models. Atherosclerosis is a primary cause of cardiovascular diseases, which are the number one ...
CHICAGO—November 3, 2023—Illinois Institute of Technology (Illinois Tech) has leased approximately 34,295 square feet in Trammell Crow Company’s (TCC) Fulton Labs innovation hub, announced today by the Chicago office of TCC, a global real estate developer. Illinois Tech will occupy the entire 7th floor of the cutting-edge wet lab facilities at 400 North Aberdeen, aiming to fuel scientific breakthroughs and industry-relevant research as the first academic institution to join the thriving and collaborative innovation ecosystem alongside their Fulton Labs neighbors, which include Portal Innovations and the Chan Zuckerberg BioHub. ...
Ever since the discovery of the Higgs boson in 2012, physicists have wanted to build new particle colliders to better understand the properties of that elusive particle and probe elementary particle physics at ever-higher energy scales.
The trick is, doing so takes energy – a lot of it. A typical collider takes hundreds of megawatts – the equivalent of tens of millions of modern lightbulbs – to operate. That's to say nothing of the energy it takes to build the devices, and it all adds ...
November 3, TORONTO — Scientists at the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research (OICR) have uncovered one way tobacco smoking causes cancer and makes it harder to treat by undermining the body’s anti-cancer safeguards.
Their new study, published today in Science Advances, links tobacco smoking to harmful changes in DNA called ‘stop-gain mutations’ that tell the body to stop making certain proteins before they are fully formed.
They found that these stop-gain mutations were especially prevalent in genes known as ‘tumour-suppressors’, ...
Joint press release by MARUM - Center for Marine Environmental Sciences at the University of Bremen and GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel
The distribution of salt by ocean currents plays a crucial role in regulating the global climate. This is what researchers from Dalhousie University in Canada, GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel, Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI) and MARUM – Center for Marine Environmental Sciences at the University of Bremen have found in a new study. ...
The connection between exercise and inflammation has captivated the imagination of researchers ever since an early 20th-century study showed a spike of white cells in the blood of Boston marathon runners following the race.
Now, a new Harvard Medical School study published Nov. 3 in Science Immunology may offer a molecular explanation behind this century-old observation.
The study, done in mice, suggests that the beneficial effects of exercise may be driven, at least partly, by the immune system. It shows that muscle inflammation caused by exertion mobilizes inflammation-countering T cells, or Tregs, which enhance the muscles’ ability to use ...
There are many creatures on our planet with more advanced senses than humans. Turtles can sense Earth’s magnetic field. Mantis shrimp can detect polarized light. Elephants can hear much lower frequencies than humans can. Butterflies can perceive a broader range of colors, including ultraviolet (UV) light.
Inspired by the enhanced visual system of the Papilio xuthus butterfly, a team of researchers have developed an imaging sensor capable of “seeing” into the UV range inaccessible to human eyes. The design of the sensor uses stacked photodiodes and perovskite nanocrystals (PNCs) capable of imaging different wavelengths ...
East Hanover, NJ – November 3, 2023 – Experts reported little change in October’s employment indicators, as people with disabilities extended their historic highs into the fall, according to today’s National Trends in Disability Employment (nTIDE) – semi-monthly update issued by Kessler Foundation and the University of New Hampshire’s Institute on Disability (UNH-IOD). As anti-inflationary measures exert their cooling effects on the economy, people with disabilities are striving to maintain their gains in the post-pandemic labor market.
Month-to-Month nTIDE Numbers (comparing September 2023 to October 2023)
Based on ...
