Newspapers / Winston-Salem Chronicle (Winston-Salem, N.C.) / March 4, 2010, edition 1 / Page 7
Part of Winston-Salem Chronicle (Winston-Salem, N.C.) / About this page
This page has errors
The date, title, or page description is wrong
This page has harmful content
This page contains sensitive or offensive material
? If r Health & Wellness Healthbeat State gets extra Medicare funds Gov. Bev Perdue applauded the decision by the Obama Administration and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to provide North Carolina with $152 million in financial relief. The federal government will provide a temporary reduction in the costs to states associated with the federal Medicare Part D drug program. "This decision by the Obama Administration and Secretary Sebelius couldn't have come at a better time to help our state continue to provide criti cal health serv ices," said Perdue. Sebelius announced the funding as part of a nationwide action to pro v vide some budget relief to states made possible by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), which temporarily increased the amount states receive from the federal government to help pay for their Medicaid programs The increase was to the federal share of Medicaid costs, referred to as federal medical assis tance percentage payments (FMAP). HHS will apply the ARRA increased FMAP to so called clawback payments, which is the amount states pay to the federal government as required by the Medicare Prescription Drug Improvement and Modernization Act of 20()3 (MM A). It is intended to offset some of the added expense to Medicare Part D of assuming drug costs for residents dually eligible for both programs Prior to MM A. state Medicaid programs covered prescription drug costs for these beneficiaries This temporary adjustment in the clawback pay ments will be applied for the period October 1. 2008 through December 31. 2010. In his 2011 budget. President Obama calls for the FMAP increase estab lished in ARRA to be extended through June 30, 2011 It's Severe Weather Awareness Week in N.C. As North Carolinians eagerly await springtime. Gov. Bev Perdue cautioned residents to be on the lookout for severe weather that may include torna does and thunderstorm v Perdue declared Feb. 28 - March 6 Severe Weather Awareness Week in North Carolina and recommends that families have safety plans for home, work or school so they can respond quickly when tornadoes or severe storms threaten. Schools and government buildings statewide were slated to hold tornado drills yesterday morning. "We never know when or where a tornado will strike," said Perdue. "You may only have a few min utes warning. That is why it is so critical to have emergency plans in place." Perdue urged all North Carolinians to take time now to discuss and rehearse family emergency plans so that when the National Weather Service issues a tornado w arning in their area, everyone can act quick ly and take shelter calmly. March, May and November are the deadliest months for tornadoes in North Carolina. Last year, the National Weather Service issued approximately 70 tornado warnings and recorded 33 tornadoes in North Carolina. Four of those tornadoes had winds in excess of 110 mph. Combined, the tor nadoes caused at least S3 million in damages. Improved Krankies Farmers' Market opening April 20 The Krankies Fanners' Market will kick off its second season on April 20 in a new. larger location outside Krankies Coffee, which is at the corner of Patterson Avenue and "Third Street. The market, which will be open every Tuesday from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. through the end of November, will celebrate the opening of its new season with a spring greens cooking demonstration by hcalthy cooking advocate Lee Newlin, who hosts cooking woncsnops at ner Greensboro home. She focuses on how to use fresh ingredi ents and make sim ple, dciicious meals with optimum health benefits. Market shoppers who buy any spring greens may enter a raffle for a Krankies Farmers' Market canvas bag made from recycled cot ton and printed using water-based ink by TS Designs Submitted Hwp Lee Newlin works in her organic garden. in duj iiii??imr? "The success of last y ear 's market demonstrated * pent-up demand for locally grown, pesticide-free vegetables, fruits and meats." said Matt Mayers, mar ket manager "With our move from inside Krankies out to the street, shoppers can expect to see many more farmers and more produce variety." The K rankles Farmers' Market, a joint effort between Triad Buying Co-op Inc. and Krankies Coffee, features locally and sustainably grown and/or produced foods, including vegetables, fruit, honey, eggs, pasture-fed meat and bread For more information about Newlin's cooking workshops and garden tours. see www.leenewlin.com 'Whites commit crimes; Blacks are criminals' In new book , professor explains how social science developed this mindset CHRONK II si Ml REPORT An Indiana University professor says that poor African- Americans who com mit crimes have long been held to a dif ferent standard than whites who commit similar offenses. In his new book. "The Condemnation of Blackness: Race, Crime, and the Making of Urban America." Khalil Gibran Muhammad, an assistant profes sor of history, tells "an unsettling com ing-of-age story" about the idea of black criminality in modern America. At the tum of the 20th century, reformers a<id social scientists argued that high rates of crime and violence among white European immigrants could be explained by poverty, discrimi nation and social upheaval. Improve social conditions* they said, and immigrants would Muhammad be like the native-bom. But. according to Muhammad, the same argument didn't apply when it came to African Americans. Liberals and conservatives alike accepted that high crime rates for blacks were evidence of racial inferiority. Linking crime and race first began to take hold in the post-Reconstruction peri od. he writes, when "Southerners used crime to justify disfranchisement. Ivnch ing and Jim Crow segregation: Northerners used it to justify municipal neglect, joblessness and residential segre gation." "The Condemnation of Blackness." published by Harvard University Press, shows how social scientists refashioned blackness through newly available crime data. In the words of historian David Levering Lewis, the book "disrupts one of the nation's most insidious, convenient and resilient explanatory loops: whites commit crimes, but black males are crim inals." At the heart of the initial story is the I K90 census, the first to describe the gen eration of African Americans born after the Civil War. Among its findings: blacks made up 30 percent of U.S. prisoners but only 12 percent of the overall population "Even Northern liberals saw it as a reflection not of racism but of black peo ple's bad behavior. They believed that African Americans hadn't developed 'internal controls' or recognized that free dom comes with responsibility." Muhammad said. "This is striking because, it's at the exact moment when the opposite argument was being made for European immigrants - that they need to be helped, to be Americanized, and it needs to happen now." Northern social workers set alxiut to save the "great armv of unfortunates." but left blacks alone to "work out their own salvation." Out in the Open W-S Urban League , CenterPoint helping to take away stigma of mental illness CMONKU sl\H KhHORT It has been called one of black America's longest-held secrets. Now. the Winston-Salem Urban League and CenterPoint Human Ser\ icc are working together to bring it out into the open. The agencies announced last week that the\ will work together locally to push a national eitort to spread awareness aoout mental health in the African American community. The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Ser\ ices Administration (SAMHSA), in collaboration with the Ad Council and the Stay Strong Foundation, unveiled the nationwide cam paign last week on the Washington, DC. cam pus of Howard University. According to SAMHSA. in 2008, there were an estimated 9.8 million adults aged 18 or older living with serious mental illness. Among adults, the prevalence of serious men tal illness is highest in the 18 to 25 age group, yet, this age group is also the least likely to receive services or counseling. In 2008. 6.0 percent of African Americans ages 18-25 had serious mental illness in the past year. Overall, only 58.7 percent of Americans with serious mental illness received care within the past 12 months and the percentage of African Americans receding services is only 44.8 per cent . The SAMHSA campaign will include pub lic service announcement (PSAs) on television and in newspapers and magazines. One of the first PSAs features Susan Taylor, the former editor of Essence magazine Taylor now devotes much of her time to the National Cares Mentoring Movement (formerly Essence Cares), a youth mentoring agency she found ed. Locally. the Winston-balem L rban League and CenterPoint have jointly conducted seminars to train local pastors and others to recognize the signs of mental illnesses - which includes depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder and schizophrenia - so that they can direct their members to seek help. The local agencies will also provide links on their Web sites to the SAMHSA PSAs and other online mental health resources. Terrie M. William\ is the co-founder of The Stay Strong Foundation, which works to sup port. educate and inspire Afr>>aTV American youth. The Foundation collaborated on the develop ment of the Web videowfid PSA materials. "It is the work of the Stay Strong Foundation and my personal mission to educate everyone, and in particular the African American community, about depression and its impact on our com munities," said Williams. "Every day so many of us wear the "mask" of wellness that hides our pain from the world. Now is the time to identify and name our pain - minus the myths and the stigmas - and seek the help so many of us need." To view the PSA.\ and other information. to wwwstorie sthathealsamhsu .gov . Warm Comfort Award-winning "Grey's Anatomy" actress Chandra Wilson delivers a quilt to a young hospital patient. The actress - in conjunction with Downy fabric softener and Quilts for Kids. Inc. - has delivered dozens of quilts of kids in hospitals throughout the nation since last year. In celebration of its 50th year. Downy has launched a new spe cially marked bottle, which when purchased will provide five cents to the effort to provide comforting quilts to hospitalized children. Colorectal Cancer 101 Colorectal cancer (cancer of the colon and rectum) in the third most common cancer found in adults. According to the The American Cancer Societv 146.0(H) people were diagnosed w ith colon or rectal cancer in 2009. of which more than 16.000 were African American. Unfortunately, this resulted in about 49,0()0 deaths; 7.100 of those were African American. Even though the rates of colorectal cancer have decreased in recent years, it is still one of the most common types of cancer diagnosed The risk of ikt Ptcplii, Cluuc 4 Sorth (WiM Minority Health Education (. oilaborotnrr TV- Maya \ngrk>u Center for Health Equ?t\ www wfubaunlu to?<V WAKI l-ORIM I V l V f I I | T V S( MOOt developing colorectal cancer increases with ape. In tact, more than percent of col orectal cancer cases occur in persons aged 50 years or older. In general, the number of people developing and dving from colorectal cancel has been decreasing each vear. This decrease is largely due to successful screening tests that allow for the discover} and removal of pre-cancerous growths (polyps) before thev turn into cancer Earlv detec tion and treatment can lead to improved medical outcomes. IX'spite these improvements. African American men and women have the highest rate of colorectal cancer deaths of anv racial or ethnic group Set' < 'ancer >>n Alfl City will help remove dangerous paint from some homes SPECIAL TO THE CHRONICLE Owners of some houses and apartments that contain lead-based paints will be able to get assistance ifl removing the paint under the new Lead Safe/Healthy Homes program Assistance is available for housing (both rental and owner-occupied) whose occupants have an income of 50 percent to HO percent of the a\erage median income irt this area The program is intended to eliminate the hazard that lead-base paints present to children under si*, who can ingest paint chips or lead-contaminated dust l.ead poi Mining can damage the brain and the nerv ous s\stem. and small children are more vulnerable to its effects because their grow ing bodies readily absorb lead Lead was banned from house paints in l*J7K. but houses and. apartments built before that vear frequently used lead paint because of its durability. In November, the city accepted a $2.07 million grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and l rban Development for a three-vear program to eliminate lead-based paints in the community. The Lead Safe Healthy Homes program includes screening and testing, assistance Sec Plint <>n A<
Winston-Salem Chronicle (Winston-Salem, N.C.)
Standardized title groups preceding, succeeding, and alternate titles together.
March 4, 2010, edition 1
7
Click "Submit" to request a review of this page. NCDHC staff will check .
0 / 75