Health & Wellness
Healthbeat
Forsyth's Liner inducted as
Winston-Salem Rotary president
Sallye A. Liner, president of Forsyth Medical
Center (FMC) and Medical Park Hospital (MPH), has
been inducted as thr nresirfpnt
Liner
of the Winston-Salem Rotary
Club few 2009-10. The oldest
club in the area, the Winston
Salem Rotary Club will cele
brate 93 years of service to the
community this year.
Liner, who was tapped to
lead FMC and MPH last fall,
joined Forsyth Medical Center
in 1976 and held several posi
tions in nursing, including the
vice president of nursing and
patient care services for 10
years. In 1997, she was named the executive vice
president and chief operating officer of FMC, the first
person with a clinical background to hold that posi
tion.
Hospice to hold yard sale
Hospice & Palliative CareCenter is holding its
second annual yard sale and bake sale on Saturday,
August 8, from 8 ajn. to 1 p.m. at the Williams
Education & Counseling Center parking lot on the
organization's campus at 101 Hospice Lane in
Winston-Salem. The fundraiser will benefit Hospice
patients and families in need of support.
The event will include donated household items,
such as furniture, china, crystal and more. The event
| will also feature plates of homemade barbecue and
baked items such as homemade cookies, cakes and
pies.
Hospice is accepting donations for the yard sale
on Aug. 5, 6 and 7, between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m.
Suitable items include children's clothing from
size 0-3 months to 12/14 months; baby equipment
such as strollers and cribs; sports gear such as golf
clubs, basketballs, and footballs; children's books,
toys and games; accessories such as scarves, jewelry
and purses; working electronics; books; household
items in good shape; and furniture. Adult clothing
and shoes, medical equipment or supplies, non-work
ing items; knives; anything that looks like a weapon;
and animals are not accepted.
Call Becky Bailey at 336-331-1472 with ques
tions.
Evans named head of National
Cancer Registrars Association
Inez Evans, cancer registry manager at Wake
Forest University Baptist Medical Center, has been
named the new president of the National Cancer
Registrars Association (NCRA). She has been a
member of NCRA since 1983
and has been involved in NCRA
activities since 1998.
"Being a registrar I know
that, in some small way, I am
contributing to the fight against
cancer," said Evans.
NCRA is a not-for-profit
association representing cancer
registry professionals and certi
fied tumor registrars (CTR).
The primary focus of NCRA is
Mumrion and fortification, with
Evans
the goal to ensure that all cancer registry profession
als have the required knowledge to be superior in their
field.
Evans, an employee at the Medical Center for
almost 30 years, has an associate of arts degree in
health information technology from Central Piedmont
Community College and a bachelor of science degree
in business management from Gardner-Webb
University.
UNCG's Wu probes link between
oral health and cognitive decline
Dr. Bei Wu, an associate professor in the gerontol
ogy program at The University of North Carolina at
Greensboro, has been awarded a four year, $1 J mil
lion grant by the National Institutes of Health to study
the link between dental health and cognitive decline
m
in older populations.
Wu, the principal investiga
tor for the grant, shares the
award with Dr. Brenda L.
Plassman of Duke University,
Dr. Jersey Liang of the
University of Michigan; and Dr.
Richard Crout of West Virginia
University.
The researchers hope to gain
a deeper understanding of the
link between oral health and
cosnitive impairment with the
goal of developing intervention strategies, Wu said.
They hope this grant will create opportunities for fur
ther study.
"Poor oral health is very common among older
adults as is cognitive decline, with the worst case
being Alzheimer's disease and dementia." she said.
"If we have better knowledge about these two health
outcomes, we could potentially provide prevention
strategies that can help improve people's oral and
cognitive health. These arc our main goals."
Work for the grant research, which includes ana
lyzing national and regional data culled from commu
nity-based samples, has already begun. While
research has already established a strong association
between oral health and heart disease, stroke and dia
betes, there has been little study of how the state of
older person's teeth and gums might relate to their
cognitive decline.
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Throughout the nation and
especially in the state of North
Carolina, African Americans are
more likely than Whites to have
hypertension, or high blood
pressure. According to the
National Center for Health
Statistics, in 2006, about 4 out
of every 10 African American
men and women living in the US
had hypertension! Hypertension
is a silent killer in that it has no
symptoms, so many people do
not know they have it. Yet, if left
untreated, it can lead to heart
-disease, heart failure, stroke
and kidney failure. What's more
alarming is that studies have
shown that hypertension pro
gresses to organ failure more
rapidly in African Americans
than it in Whites.
What is hypertension, and
how is it treated?
For adults, normal blood
pressure is less than 120/80
mmHg. Blood pressures from
129-139/80-89 mmHg are con
sidered pre-hypt?rtension, mean
ing that the person is at high risk
for developing hypertension.
Hypertension begins at 140/90
mmHg. For people with diabetes
or kidney disease, blood pres
sure of less than 130/80 is rec
ommended. .
How hypertension is treated
depends on its severity.
Hypertension treatment fre
quently involves lifestyle,
changes (e.g. diet and exercise)
in conjunction with medications
that lower your blood pressure.
With pre-hypertension, research
has shown that medication is not
recommended, but sufferers
should eat healthfully and
engage in adequate physical
See DASH on A9
Baptist listed among nation's best hospitals
CHRONICLE STAFF REPORT
Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center
is listed as one of "America's Best Hospitals" in five
categories in rankings published in the 2009-2010
edition of "America's Best Hospitals" by U.S. News
& World Report. The issue hit newsstands last week
and is available online at
www.usnews.com/besthospitals.
WFUBMC is among the top 50 hospitals and
medical centers listed out of a total of 4,861 hospi
tals in the U.S. There are 16 different categories. The
"America's Best Hospitals" guide lists a total of only
174 medical centers nationwide that are ranked in
the top 50 in one or more of 16 specialties.
Additional data are available online for another
1 .500 hospitals that qualified to be considered but
did not score high enough to be ranked in a special
ty.
Wake Forest Baptist is ranked in respiratory dis
orders (20th), cancer (26th), kidney disease (26th),
urology (41st) and gynecology (46th). The achieve
ment of the gynecology ranking follows several
years of building a world-class program at the
Medical Center.
The rankings in 12 specialties, including the five
in which Wake Forest Baptist was listed, are pre
dominantly driven by data in four components: rep
utation, mortality rate, patient safety and care-relat
ed factors such as nursing and patient services. The
goal of the rankings is to identify medical centers
that excel at treating a variety of demanding illness
es within a specialty. Four other specialties are
ranked solely by reputation among physicians in
each specialty.
Wake Forest Baptist has been ranked in
"America's Best Hospitals" by U.S. News & World
Report since 1993.
TOBACCO CONTROL
I I
Study says
homosexuals
more likely
to be smokers
SPECIAL TO THE CHRONICLE
Gays and lesbians are
more likely than their hetero
sexual counterparts to smoke,
according to a University of
North Carolina at Chapel Hill
study.
The findings, published in
the August issue of the jour
nal. Tobacco Control, show
that as many as 37 percent of
homosexual women and 33
percent of homosexual men
smoke. That compares to
national smoking rates of 18
percent for women and 24
percent for men in the 2006
National Health Interview
Survey.
The authors reviewed
findings from 42 studies of
the prevalence of tobacco use
among sexual minorities in
the U.S. published between
1987 and May 2007. The
findings suggest smoking is a
significant health inequality
for sexual minorities.
Recognizing and under
standing the increased risk in
a particular population can
help policymakers, health
care officials and others pro
vide support for people more
likely to start smoking or who
may want to stop smoking,
said Joseph Lee, lead author
of the review and a social
research specialist with the
Tobacco Prevention and
Evaluation Program in the
UNC School of Medicine.
A number of small or geo
graphically limited studies
have suggested that sexual
minorities have higher rates
of tobacco use than the gener
al population, said Lee, who
conducted the review as a
master's student in collabora
tion with Cathy Melvin,
Ph.D., at the UNC Gillings
School of Global Public
Health and UNC's Sheps
Center for Health Services
Research, and Gabriel
Griffin, a medical student at
the Duke University School
of Medicine.
"The underlying causes of
these disparities are not fully
explained by this review,"
Lee said. "Likely explana
tions include the success of
tobacco industry's targeted
marketing to gays and les
bians, as well as time spent in
smoky social venues and
stress from discrimination."
Festive event to raise STI awareness
CHRONICLE STAFF REPORT
The Forsyth County
Department of Health's
P.O.S.S.E. program will hold a
day of fun and awareness on
Saturday, Aug. 1 from 2-4 p.m.
at the Arts Council Theatre, 610
Coliseum Drive.
P.O.S.S.E. (Prevent Ongoing
Spread of STIs Everywhere)
aims to educate the public about
sexually-transmitted-infections
such as HIV and syphilis, which
health officials are fighting vigi
lantly since a recent spike in
cases.
Forsyth County has identified
100 new syphilis cases since
January 2009, compared to 27
cases last year during the same
time frame. Forsyth is now
ranked No. 1 for the highest
number of infectious syphilis
cases in the state. In late August,
county and state health officials
plan a major initiative to address
the syphilis outbreak.
Saturday's program will
drive home the messages of pre
File Pttoto
Annie Hamlin
Johnson
(right) per
forms her
piece, "I Need
Your Love and
Understanding
" with a mem
ber of her act
ing troupe.
vcntion, protection and testing. It
will feature food, entertainment,
and even a slated appearance by
a National Black Theatre
Festival (NBTF) celebrity.
Annie Hamlin Johnson, the
mother of NBTF founder Larry
Leon Hamlin, and her theater
troupe will perform "I Need Your
Love and Understanding." a dra
matic piece written by Hamlin
Johnson thai centers around a
woman who must reveal to her
friends and loved-ones that she
has a ST1. Hamlin Johnson, a
well-known local HIV/AIDS
activists, uses the piece to tear
down the walls of intolerance
that many with STIs face.
Tickets for two NBTF pro
ductions that deal with
HIV/AIDS will be given away to
a select few. The shows, "In the
Continuum" and "Hope: Living
& Loving with HIV in Jamaica"
have been highly-praised for
their handling of the subject.
For more information, call
Forsyth ' County HIV/STI
Superv isor Patrice Toney at 336
703-3181 or via e-mail:
toneypy@forsyth .cc.