Living for Health in South Miami-Dade is a two year grant funded prevention and education program. Our primary goal is to screen underserved residents for heart disease, stroke, and diabetes in hopes to encourage them to seek treatment and make healthy lifestyle changes to reduce their risk.
This is achieved by providing free screening events within the community, which include blood pressure testing, quick finger stick to check blood for Total Cholesterol, HDL (Healthy Cholesterol), and Glucose (Blood Sugar) Levels. Participants are then provided with free counseling to discuss results including healthy lifestyle choices (diet and exercise) and encouraged to seek medical treatment.
Those who have no personal physician will be offered medical services through Community Health of South Dade Inc. (CHI). Pre and post lifestyle behaviors for nutrition and physical activity as well as clinical results (when available) will be recorded through two follow up phone surveys to determine program impact. The first survey will be conducted one month after the initial screening to reinforce the necessity for medical follow-up and lifestyle changes and again at three months from initial screening to confirm that treatment was sought, obtain post clinical results and determine whether lifestyle changes in nutrition and physical activity were sustained.
Improving the health of the community one step at a time, Living for Health will have screened and followed more than 4,000 underserved residents in South-Miami Dade after two years. FHRI is grateful to the Health Foundation of South Florida and the United Way of Miami-Dade for making this possible!
- Since the inception of the Living 4 Health program, over 2,857 people have been screened for cardiovascular disease.
- Of the 2,857 total participants screened, 1,662 or 58.2% were referred to a physician for follow-up treatment due to their high risk clinical values for Blood Pressure, Cholesterol and/or Glucose.
- Of the total participants referred for follow-up thru November 2009, 47% were able to increase and sustain their daily fruit and vegetable consumption for 3 months, and 38% of participants were able to increase and sustain their daily physical activity levels for 3 months, all at the urging of screeners and/or a physician.
- As of November 2009, of the overall number of people referred for medical follow-up who sought treatment and were able to provide post clinical data, 66% moved from high risk to borderline or normal levels as a result of that treatment or lifestyle changes.
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