Through Project HEALTH, 75 student volunteers are working with underprivileged children suffering from asthma, sickle cell anemia and other health problems to educate them about their illnesses and foster good health habits.
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Through Project HEALTH (Helping Empower, Advocate and Lead through Health), 75 student volunteers are working with underprivileged children suffering from asthma, sickle cell anemia and other health problems to educate them about their illnesses and foster good health habits. For seniors Atiya Ali and Ahou Meydani, who spend 15 to 20 hours each week coordinating the project programs, the effort is well spent.
"Clearly, Project HEALTH is filling an unmet need for these families," said Ali.
Poor children, she explained, are frequently exposed to health risks such as poor nutrition, disease, family stress, inadequate social support and parental depression; when they become ill, they face more serious consequences than children of higher socioeconomic status. Project HEALTH was first founded in 1996 at Harvard to break the cycle.
The Harvard model "worked so well it was expanded to Columbia, MIT and Brown," said Meydani, noting Project HEALTH is now being launched in Washington, D.C., as well.
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n the program, students work under the direction of physicians, social workers and attorneys in tackling health and advocacy needs for low-income families. The professionals teach the students, who in turn teach the patients they refer, explained Ali."We can provide them with a clear avenue to medical information," she said.
Brown’s program was established two years ago, under the leadership of Brad Mak ’00 and senior Felicia Kuo, with a $3,000 grant from Lifespan and just 10 undergraduate volunteers. When Ali and Meydani joined the program in the fall of 1999, the project encompassed three programs — AsthmaSwim, STRIVE and FitNut — operated from the project’s headquarters at the SouthSide Boys and Girls Club.
Through AsthmaSwim, Brown volunteers teach the children how to deal with their asthma, offer tutoring and teach them how to swim, Ali explained. STRIVE is a one-on-one mentoring program for teens with sickle cell anemia, while FitNut — Fitness and Nutrition — is a program designed to teach better nutritional habits and exercise to overweight girls.
The students work with youngsters on symptom management "in a fun, interactive way," said Meydani. "In FitNut, they may play a Jeopardy game on nutrition facts. In AsthmaSwim we teach them about their lungs, so that they understand what’s going on in their bodies, so they have some control."
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he results are beginning to show. For example, children in the 1997-98 and 1998-99 AsthmaSwim sessions showed a mean improvement of 23 percent in their peak flow (a measure of lung capacity) as a result of the combined education and exercise — more than four times the difference seen with the newest asthma medications.Funding the project is an ongoing challenge. Last semester, Ali and Meydani sought and received a $10,000 grant from Lifespan’s Community Health Institute to finance this year’s programs and two new hospital-based additions, the Family Advocacy Program and Project Baby (for pregnant teens).
"At Hasbro, physicians only have 15 minutes per patient and lack sufficient time to address critical aspects of families’ lives — such as access to food and health care — while providing necessary medical care," said Ali. "Brown volunteers advocate for low-income families, ensuring access to food, safe shelter, health insurance and job training."
For Meydani, a pre-med student, the decision to work for Project HEALTH was born of the frustration she felt in her earlier hospital volunteer experience.
"I saw the issues families faced, but I couldn’t do anything about it," she said. "As an undergraduate, there aren’t many opportunities to make a difference in the health of a patient and family. Through Project HEALTH, we have the freedom to design programs to work with families in creative, innovative ways."