Life
HBCU Wellness Project promoting healthy lifestyles
(Black PR Wire) – The Historically Black College and University (HBCU) Wellness Project uses human and social capital in Tennessee to promote health and wellness in the surrounding communities.
“I look at wellness holistically,” said Candace Jones, a senior sociology student from Detroit, Michigan. Jones is a wellness project health ambassador at Fisk University. “It is important that we as people stay healthy – physically, mentally, emotionally and most of all spiritually.”
The Meharry Medical College directs the program throughout the state. It operates through 5 HBCUs: Fisk University, Knoxville College, Lane College, LeMonye Owen College and Tennessee State University.
The project uses intervention initiatives that are designed to promote wellness. Its goal is to modify risks for chronic disease through service-oriented and educational resources. In order to be effective, the program developed five objectives which are:
– To conduct needs assessments for local communities and campuses.
– Enhance the capacity of faculty to integrate service-learning into the curricula.
– Recruit, train and guide student health ambassadors to develop health and wellness projects to promote readiness for change.
– Assess short and long-term outcomes of service-learning activities in communities of color.
– Develop and maintain a pipeline of students of color interested in entering health professions workforce.
