HealthBeat
Two named to stroke board
Wintson-Salem-based N.C. Stroke
Association (NCSA) has named Anita Holmes
and Dr. Robert A. Yapundich to its Board of
Directors.
Holmes is the executive director of the
Justus-Warren Heart Disease and Stroke
Prevention Task Force and director of the N.C.
Stroke Care
Collaborative. In that
role, she leads this leg
islatively-mandated Task
Force in identifying and
publicizing the burden of
heart disease and stroke
across the state and
working with resources
such as the N.C. Stroke
Association in improving
the cardiovascular health
of North Carolinians.
Yapundich is a neurol
ogist in private practice
since 1996 with
Neurology Associates in
Hickory who is actively
involved in clinical
research. He currently
serves as the stroke direc
tor at Catawba Valley
Medical Center and has
served as past-president
of the North Carolina
Holmes
Yapundich
Neurological Society and is currently a board
member of the North Carolina Medical Society.
Dr. Yapundich has been named one of the top
50 Neurologists in North Carolina by U.S.
News and World Report.
The Association's mission is to reduce the
incidence and impact of stroke in North
Carolina through collaborations to facilitate
screening, education, outcome assessments and
advocacy. For more information, visit
www.ncstroke.org.
Clean air honor for N.C.
North Carolina has received a national clean
air award for an innovative program aimed at
improving air quality at the state's public
schools during the past 18 years.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
has presented one of its Clean Air Excellence
Awards for the Clean School Bus NC program.
a joint effort between the
N.C. Department of
Environment and Natural
Resources' Division of
Air Quality, the N.C. i
Department of Public
1 Instruction, or DPI, and
local school systems
across the state.
The program has used
a combination of policy,
technology, outreach and
transportation efforts to
reduce students' exposure to harmful air pollu
tion from cars and school buses since the mid
1990s. A key goal of the program was to reduce
air emissions from older school buses, which
often are powered by diesel engines that can
produce harmful emissions. Nearly 800,000
students travel on buses in 115 school systems
across the state. State and local agencies have
used nearly $3.6 million in grants to install pol
lution controls on older buses or replace them
with new, cleaner models.
DAQ, DPI and local systems used grants to
help retrofit 1,854 buses with exhaust controls
for removing harmful emissions at school sys
tems across the state. The grants also helped
replace or repower an additional 37 buses with
cleaner-burning alternatives, such as hybrid
gas-electric buses.
Hi
I
I
Council adds Gregory
Dr. Sandy C. Gregory, director of North
Carolina Baptist Aging Ministry (NCBAM).
was recently appointed by Governor Pat
McCrory to serve on the North Carolina
Governor's Council on Homelessness. The
Council will provide recommendations to the
Governor and the Secretary of the Department
^?f Health and Human
Services on issues related
to the problems of per
sons who are homeless or
at risk of becoming
homeless. His term will
begin immediately and
expire in February 2016.
NCBAM is a
statewide ministry that
assists aging adults 65
and older. The ministry
connects the aging and
Gregory
their families with resources to meet needs. In
partnership with North Carolina Baptists (a net
work of more than 4,000 churches) as well as ,
civic and social agencies, NCBAM strives to
enable aging adults to maintain their independ- i
ence and enjoy quality lives.
He was the executive director for the ,
Greater Hickory Cooperative Christian
Ministry and the Patrick Henry Boys and Girls
Plantation in Virginia. Prior to joining j
NCBAM as its founding director, Gregory (
served the parent organization. Baptist <
Children's Homes of North Carolina as director
of development for the south-central region. ]
Gregory has a long history of community |
involvement. He is a member of Staunton River j
MasonicS. Lodge in Virginia and First Baptist, ,
Church in Statesville. Gregory and his wife, i
Renee, live in Statesville and have seven chil
dren. ,
A&T researchers tackling
sfinUnig problem
SPECIAL TO THE CHRONICLE
Entomologists conducting integrated
pest management (IPM) research at
North Carolina Agricultural and
Technical State University have reached
a major milestone in studies of the brown
marmorated stinkbug.
The voracious bug, which has been
identified as the top invasive insect of
interest by the U.S. Department of
Agriculture, is a major economic threat
to fruit and vegetable producers and to
many growers of row crops and orna
mental plants.
The U.S. Apple Association esti
mates that in 2010 alone, the bug
accounted\or $37 million lost from
apple orchards in the Mid-Atlantic
region, and growers of other crops are
reporting similar losses. North Carolina
crops that are susceptible to the insect
include vegetables, fruits, nuts, berries,
com and soybeans, which together are
worth approximately $191 million annu
ally in farm cash receipts. In addition to
posing a threat to crops, the bug has also
become a common household nuisance,
entering homes and other manmade
structures to overwinter.
Drs. Beatrice Dingha and Louis
Jackai, researchers in N.C. A&T's
Agricultural Research Program, have
developed a laboratory rearing method
that has successfully produced five gen
erations of brown marmorated stinkbugs.
Their work was presented at the annual
meeting of the Southeastern Branch of
the Entomological Society of America in
March, and is believed to be the first
reported account of a continuous rearing
method for this bug past a second gener
ation in the U.S. The progress represents
an important step in establishing a reli
able supply of bugs for research.
"Nobody to our knowledge has ever
reported this, and as far as we know, this
is the first time this insect has successful
ly been reared through several genera
tions in the laboratory in the U.S.,"
Dingha said.
Dingha and Jackai's method involved
feeding the bugs a medley of their
favorite foods, including fresh tomato,
carrots, green beans, com, cucumber.
See Research on A9
N.C AAT Phou.
Dr. Beatrice Dingha examines a brown marmorated stinkbug.
ACS holding
20th anniversary
annual meeting
CHRONICLE STAFF REPORT
AIDS Care Service will hold its
annual meeting on Thursday, May 15
at Knollwood Baptist Church, 330
Knollwood St.
The meeting - which will have the
theme,
"Looking
Back/To the
Future" - will
begin at 5:30
p.m. with the
serving of light
refreshments.
The meeting
starts at 6 p.m.
Larry Roth,
one of the orig
inal founders of
Roth
ACS and the agency's first executive
director, will speak, as will School
Board member Elisabeth Motsinger, a
physician's assistant.
New board members and officers
will be elected during the meeting, and
outgoing leaders will recognized for
their contributions to and leadership of
ACS.
This year is AIDS Care Service's
20th anniversary. The very first ACS
planning meeting was held, at
Knollwood Baptist two decades ago.
The mission of agency is to empower
and serve our brothers and sisters liv
ing with HIV/AIDS and to educate our
community in the struggle against the
disease. AIDS Care Service provides
services to neighbors in Forsyth and
surrounding counties and is the longest
continually operating AIDS service
organization serving Forsyth County.
Combating Oral Cancers
Submitted Photo
Dr. T. D. Redd poses with Bill Johel, a product specialist for Henry Schein,
at Summerfield Farms in Greensboro on Saturday, April 5. Oral health
giant Henry Schein donated its cutting-edge Identafi Oral Cancer
Screening System to provide free screenings to dozens of people. Dr. Redd,
of Greenboro's Redd Family Dentistry, conducted the screenings. April was
Oral Cancer Awareness Month.
Praising All Nurses
SPECIAL TO THE CHRONICLE
Patients often recognize that a nurse is the health care
professional with whom they and their families have the
most direct contact. But they might
not realize that nurses also are
leaders in improving the quality of
care and expanding access to care.
That's why May 6-12 is celebrated
as National Nurses Week, an annu
al opportunity for communities to
recognize the full range of nurses'
contributions.
This year's theme, "Nurses:
Leading the Way," recognizes nurs
es as leaders at the bedside, in the
boardroom, throughout communi
ties and in the halls of government.
The public holds nurses in high
regard and trusts them to advocate
for patients. For the past 12
years, the public has ranked nurs
ing as the top profession for hon
esty and ethics in an annual Gallup
survey.
Beginning with National
Nurses Day on May 6, nurses are
i>eing honored as leaders who
improve the quality of health care. Nurses practice in
liverse roles, such as clinicians, administrators,
researchers, educators and policymakers.
"All nurses are leaders, whether they are in direct patient
:are, administrative roles, or meeting consumers' needs in
new roles such as care coordinators or wellness coaches,"
said American Nurses Association President Karen A.
Daley. "This week, we acknowledge nurses' vast contribu
tions and how they are leading the
way in improving health care and
ultimately, the health of the nation."
Nurses are leading initiatives to
increase access to care and improve
outcomes by focusing on primary
care, prevention, wellness, chronic
disease management and the coordi
nation of care among health care
providers and settings. These are
areas in which nurses excel given
their education and experience.
As the Affordable Care Act is
fully implemented, nurses will be
more crucial than ever, leading efforts
to expand primary care at communi
ty-based clinics and deliver more effi
cient and cost-effective care as mem
bers of collaborative health care
teams. Consider that:
? Nursing is the nation's largest
health care profession, with nearly
three million employed profession
als.
? Nursing is projected to grow
faster than all other occupations: The federal government
projects more than one million new RNs will be needed by
2022 to fill new jobs and replace RNs who leave the profes
See Nurses on A8