Four Outstanding Individuals Join National Health Foundation’s Board

George W. Greene, Esq., John Calderone, PhD, Paul Lopez, and Jeffrey L. Thompson recently joined National Health Foundation’s Board of Directors. Greene, Calderone, Lopez, and Thompson are committed to reducing health disparities in low-income communities.

George W. Greene, Esq recently became President and CEO of the Hospital Association of Southern California. Prior to this position, he served for seven years as the President and Chief Executive Officer of the Healthcare Association of Hawaii. Known as a consensus builder, Greene’s leadership philosophy is that family and health must come first for all individuals. He is the proud father of three children, ages 15, 13, and 19 months. National Health Foundation’s work with individuals experiencing homelessness, low-income teens, and at-risk youth is close to his heart.

John A. Calderone, Ph.D., former Chief Executive Officer for Olympia Medical Center in Los Angeles has over 40 years’ experience in the healthcare industry. He served on the Board of Directors for the Hospital Association of Southern California for over fifteen years, its Executive Committee for seven years, and as Board Chairman in 2014. He served on the Board of Trustees and its Executive Committee for the California Hospital Association. His personal experience of modest beginnings fostered his deep belief in educational mentorship, giving back to the community, assisting those less fortunate, and a sincere commitment to helping individuals who are experiencing homelessness.

Paul Lopez is the Senior Vice President, National Strategy and Development, with Prospect Medical Systems, where he is responsible for franchise model of care and clinical programs development, expansion, and management. Paul has a passion and affinity for underserved and vulnerable populations. His primary goal in life and work is to find innovative solutions that bridge gaps in access and quality care. In the healthcare arena, Paul successfully leads teams that deliver quality healthcare and programs to those most in need. His personal values, motivations, and compassion for those in need are closely aligned with National Health Foundation’s mission and vision.

Jeffrey L. Thompson currently serves as Associate Partner within IBM's consulting practice, having previously held roles as Vice President at the Walt Disney Company and VP, Digital Strategy at Conde Nast Entertainment. Thompson’s personal passion for leveraging advanced analytics to improve healthcare outcomes for underrepresented populations is well-matched to NHF's mission. Thompson hopes to leverage his media background to increase awareness of NHF's important mission. He has previously served on the Board of Directors of the Congressional Awards Foundation, student member of USC's Board of Trustees, and currently serves on the Board of Advisors of Digital Hollywood.

National Health Foundation’s mission is to improve the health of individuals and underserved communities by taking action on the social determinants of health and bridging gaps in the healthcare system. Its vision is that all people regardless of who they are or where they live, can achieve their highest level of health.

Flor’s Mini Market Gets Fresh With National Health Foundation’s Community Health Liaisons

Flor’s Mini Market is a neighborhood corner store that is one block from Thomas Jefferson High School in Historic South Central Los Angeles. It’s a favorite among high school students who frequently stop by to purchase a bite to eat before class or during lunchtime. Her merchandise mix is typical of a ‘tienda’ with must have home and personal products as well as some food and beverage inventory. Until recently, the food for sale was mostly packaged with few healthy food options. In a community that is both a food desert (with few healthy food retail choices) and a food swamp (categorized by a prevalence of unhealthy food outlets), markets such as Flor’s have come to represent unique opportunities and key potential partners in the effort to improve access to healthy, affordable foods in South Los Angeles.

Recently, Flor joined the Community Markets Purchasing Real and Affordable Foods (COMPRA foods) program, an innovative food distribution system that caters to small businesses that want to offer healthy food and leverages their collective purchases to secure better prices and quality products from wholesalers. During the first delivery of fresh produce last week, Flor was approached by a dynamic group of high school students known as the Community Health Liaisons (CHL). As part of  National Health Foundation’s (NHF’s) BUILD Health L.A. Initiative, CHL youth   

work with neighborhood markets to help corner store owners introduce healthy produce, and better merchandise fresh fruits and vegetables. CHL’s help store owners make small, gradual changes by providing technical assistance that can help overcome the challenge of introducing new inventory and taking on new risk.

Two CHL youth, Ariana Vega and Melissa Villarruel, ‘adopted’ Flor’s Mini Market to help the store owner adjust to the demands of selling perishable healthy produce and help to ensure changes are profitable and sustainable, with the overall goal of increasing the availability of fresh, quality fruits and vegetables in their neighborhood. During this initial meeting, the CHL’s helped Flor inventory produce shipment and begin using marketing strategies to promote fruits and vegetables in-store.  Together they carved out space in the store for the produce and used baskets and other materials to entice consumers to consider adding fresh fruits and vegetables to their purchases. Within a week, the students will check back with Flor see how things are going and modify their strategies as needed.

The students are keenly aware of the alarming prevalence of obesity, heart disease and diabetes in their community. For NHF, the BUILD Health Initiative presents an opportunity for partners to come together and improve the health of the community from within. By working with local high schools, NHF is able to directly connect with the energy of youth from the community. NHF brings CHL youth together with community partners such as Leadership for Urban Renewal Network (LURN), Los Angeles Food Policy Council, and Los Angeles Department of Public Health among others to share knowledge and to craft innovative solutions to build a healthier South Los Angeles overall.  The students will continue to monitor their efforts to glean important outcomes, however, their efforts have already been well received by storeowners and the community alike.

For Ariana and Melissa, the experience of working with Flor left them inspired, “I felt really good knowing that we would be able to help her not only to sell her produce but also some of the other merchandise in her store,” shared Ariana. Melissa had this to say about her experience, “The level of excitement I had from helping Flor was inexplicable, it felt as if I were riding a roller coaster, or the feeling when you just learn to drive; it felt great!”

 To read Ariana’s account of her work with Flor, please click here.

Increasing Opportunities for Exercise in Historic South Los Angeles

On February 13^th, 2017, Central Avenue Jazz Park in Historic South Central Los Angeles was transformed into an outdoor fitness space with community members and instructors moving through workouts designed to increase cardiovascular capacity, boost energy levels and increase the feeling of wellbeing. For community member Claudia Durango, it was a welcomed event, “This is going to be really good for the community; we just need to continue having people show up.” The new program is part of the rollout of National Health Foundation’s (NHF) BUILD Health LA Initiative Community Action Plan for Historic South Central.

In 2016, NHF’s BUILD Health LA Community Health Liaisons, a group of local high school students and their mentors, surveyed the community to understand residents’ barriers to health. The results of the survey were captured in the Community Action Plan that aims to improve the health of the community through methods that have been identified by the community’s residents and that capitalize on partnerships and the assets available.

Historic South Central Los Angeles is 6 square miles, and is home to roughly 103,000 people. In this community, there are no gyms and there is only 0.4 acres of park space for every 100,000 people. Along with having limited access to open space, this community is considered both a food desert (with few healthy food retail choices) and a food swamp (categorized by a prevalence of unhealthy food outlets). Obesity and diabetes are common in this community, and while physicians recommend healthy eating and exercise, these lifestyle changes are challenging to practice with what is available in the community.

One of the needs the Community Action Plan addresses is for programs to keep residents physically active. Many stated that the classes that were available were too expensive and that the free programs had extensive waitlists of residents eager to join. We learned that these residents want to exercise and they will – if the opportunity is there.

As a result, we partnered with 3WINS Fitness, an innovative program spearheaded by Dr. Loy and Kinesiology students from California State University, Northridge. 3WINS Fitness “adopts” parks in Los Angeles, and sends Kinesiology students to teach community members how to exercise while nurturing a community mentality that leads to friendships, accountability and results!

In addition to 3WINS Fitness, NHF also partnered with California Hospital Medical Center, LA County Department of Public Health, LA City Parks and Recreation, Newton Community Police Station, All People’s Community Center, and A Place Called Home, to launch the fitness program. Classes take place Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays at Central Avenue Jazz Park and All People’s Community Center.

Community members are thrilled with this new opportunity and have already built great rapport with the instructors from 3WINS. For NHF, the program represents a new way of delivering health to the community. “By creating an opportunity for the community to express their needs and actively engage in finding solutions to the health barriers they were experiencing, they are bringing about healthy changes from within,” shared NHF CEO Kelly Bruno.

Consistency is always the key with taking on a new behavior, but we are sure that with this new partnership and with the different components of the BUILD Health LA Initiative and Community Action Plan, the residents in Historic South Central Los Angeles will have new opportunities to live a healthier lifestyle.

High School Health Activist Has Sights Set on Health Career

Aracely Ortiz, 2nd from left, presenting Health Academy's Cafeteria Makeover Project during the 

Youth Summit hosted by LACDPH, April 2015

Aracely Ortiz first heard about the Health Academy during a recruitment presentation in class when she was in 9^th grade. It was also Health Academy’s first year at Thomas Jefferson Senior High. “I wasn’t really involved in anything else at that time,” she explains, “but Health Academy just sounded different from all the other groups I’d heard about, so I decided to go for it.”

She went on to submit an application and sat through an interview, and in the spring semester of 2014, Aracely became a member, or “youth leader,” of the brand-new Health Academy program. After attending a few meetings and experiencing first-hand what the program was about, she was hooked. “At first I was debating whether to continue or not, but everyone in the program was so nice and supportive. It felt like a good place to be.”

Through Health Academy, Aracely learned some unexpected things about her community. She learned how her neighborhood is often considered a food desert or food swamp because of the prevalence of fast food restaurants and liquor stores compared to full-service grocery stores that sell fresh fruits and vegetables. While discussing food swamps, she said, “it was definitely eye-opening. I thought that we already had a lot of things in our community, but now I’ve realized that we don’t have as much as we should.”

Since realizing this, Aracely has actively worked to improve access to healthy food for her school and her community. She often shares information she learns through Health Academy with her family and friends. “I always show my parents the healthy food recipes I get from Health Academy, and we’ve started making them at home… I’ve also taught my parents how to read nutrition labels, and it’s something we look at now when we shop for food”.

Aracely has also taken on leadership roles in several Health Academy initiatives, such as implementing Smarter Lunchroom strategies in the school cafeteria and the Mini Farm Stand project. Throughout her participation, Aracely has been an important voice for her fellow students and community members. One moment she feels particularly proud of was attending a youth summit hosted by the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health during her sophomore year, where she presented her team’s Cafeteria Makeover project to other high school students from across the County. “We made changes in the cafeteria that year that decreased the wait times for getting lunch and also got students more excited about the cafeteria food. More students started participating in the school lunch program, and I like to think our project helped… I felt really proud of how we presented our project and I think we were able to give other schools some good ideas.”

Her experience with Health Academy encouraged Aracely to be even more involved in school. Aside from Health Academy, she is now also an active member of her school’s Gay-Straight Alliance chapter, Student Leadership and ROTC. Now a senior, Aracely is in her fourth and final year in Health Academy, where her role has expanded to include Youth Social Media Manager. In this position, she will work with other Health Academy students to create and post content for the NHF Health Academy Instagram page. Aracely is also getting ready for college next year and has already received acceptance letters from California State University, Dominguez Hills and Loyola Marymount University. She aspires to become a nurse someday, and credits her involvement in Health Academy for inspiring her interest in the health field. 

Aracely is one of over a hundred students that has participated in Health Academy which is going into its fourth year through funding from the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health. Recently, National Health Foundation received another Department of Public Health grant, the Champions for Change – Healthy Communities Initiative, to expand Health Academy to another Los Angeles high school; allowing NHF’s Health Academy and its proven benefits to reach many more students like Aracely, their families and the community.

Two Men, Two Paths

Arnie and Mat arrived at National Health Foundation’s (NHF) Pathway Recuperative Care from partner hospitals in early December 2016. Both were in need of additional medical supervision and both were homeless. The similarities in their cases ended there. The task of delivering essential care and helping the two men find stable housing required an individualized plan that took into account their stories, their needs and their goals.

Arnie's multiple chronic medical conditions require monitoring and medication, both of which are challenging to maintain on a modest monthly social security check. He found himself unable to pay for rent and his condition deteriorated until he needed to be hospitalized. Upon discharge from the hospital he was homeless and in need of follow-up care. At Pathway Recuperative Care, Arnie worked closely with staff members on his care plan. This plan looks at the patient’s needs both medically and with respect to housing. Staff then began connecting Arnie to services available to him via the Department of Mental Health as well as medical services to ensure continuous improvement on both fronts. With Arnie’s motivation and Pathway staff persistence, he was able to secure stable housing that will ensure a sustained return to health.

For Mat, the struggle was no less intense. He came to Pathway Recuperative Care from a partner hospital with no money, no identification and no home. Struggling to recover from substance abuse, the 20-year-old had spent years in the foster care system and found emancipation to be more difficult than he had the skills to cope with. Upon arriving at Pathway Recuperative Care, the staff worked with Mat to reapply for General Relief, obtain a replacement Electronic Benefit Transfer card and kept him proactive in attending the necessary medical and social services appointments that would ensure his return to health. The last piece of Mat’s health plan was to secure stable housing.  Mat’s stable housing is such that he will receive the support he needs to maintain his health while acquiring the skills he needs to navigate adulthood.

For Pathway Recuperative Care staff, each patient has a vastly different set of circumstances that has led to the decline in their health and the loss of their home. “Each person who comes to Pathway is seen as an individual with distinct health needs. We take the time to understand their history and work with them to devise a plan that matches their needs and capacity for managing their progress to sustained health," explained Kelly Bruno, MSW, President/CEO National Health Foundation. For Arnie and Mat, the prospect of an end to homelessness was welcomed with large grins and a sense of accomplishment. “We find it impossible to speak about health without addressing the most fundamental social determinant of health: housing. Without a home, there can be no health,” asserts Bruno. With secure and supportive homes both Arnie and Mat can now turn their attention and energy towards their healing and health.

National Health Foundation Awarded Nearly $1 Million to Address High Obesity Rates in Historic South Central Los Angeles

National Health Foundation (NHF) was awarded $880,000 from the Los Angeles CountyDepartment of Public Health with funding from the California Department of Public Health and the United States Department of Agriculture. The grant will support the Champions for Change - Healthy Communities Initiative, which aims to reduce the prevalence of obesity among low-income Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program-Education eligible populations by providing nutrition education, physical activity promotion, and working to create healthier environments for low-income individuals and families where they live, learn, work, play, pray, and shop.

Key efforts under the initiative include teaching fundamental skills such as cooking, reading food labels, shopping on a budget, growing fruits and vegetables, and introducing low-cost and fun ways to be physically active. In addition, champions in communities throughout the County will be identified to help improve access to healthier foods and increase opportunities to be physical active in a variety of settings, including early childcare centers, schools, faith-based organizations, corner stores, parks, worksites, and cities.   

“National Health Foundation is pleased to be a part of this County-wide initiative, as we are committed to improving underserved communities by taking actions on the social determinants of health,” explained Kelly Bruno, MSW, President/CEO, National Health Foundation. “We are working toward making notable changes in the community by working with students in schools, local corner stores and community partners to make healthier foods more affordable and available as well as identify ways to integrate physical activity into the day to improve the overall health for families in South Central LA.” 

According to the LA County: A Cities andCommunities Health Report, obesity-related chronic illnesses continue to rank among the top ten leading causes of premature death, including heart disease, stroke, and diabetes. While the obesity epidemic continues to impact virtually all population groups, roughly 29% of children and 37% of adults in South Central LA are obese, which is significantly higher than the rest of Los Angeles County. LA County black and Latino resident’s fair worse when it comes to obesity and obesity-related illnesses compared to whites and Asians. Thirty-two percent of Latinos and thirty one percent of blacks are obese in LA County, compared to 18% of whites and 8% of Asians. When it comes to South Central Los Angeles black and Latino residents, who make up 10% and 87% of the population respectively, the situation is no different. 

“Reducing obesity is a priority of Public Health and a key objective of the Champions for Change - Healthy Communities Initiative,” said Jeffrey Gunzenhauser, Interim Health Officer of Los Angeles County. “By investing in our communities and the people that we serve, we are hopeful that we can make impactful, long-lasting changes for better health outcomes.”

 

Winter Clothing Drive for Recuperative Care

National Health Foundation is hosting a Winter Clothing Drive for Recuperative Care Program participants. These men and women are continuing to heal after a hospital stay and are transitioning to stable housing after having been homeless. Many come to our program without the basic necessities such as a change of clothes and cold weather apparel. Kindly consider sharing what you can! We will collect donations through January 30th.

ITEMS NEEDED FOR DONATIONS (both men and women)

Underwear (bras, panties, men’s boxer shorts-30-32, 34-36, 38-40, 40-42, 44-46)

T-shirts: Medium, Large, X-Large and XXL, XXXL

Sweat Pants: Medium, Large, X-Large and XXL, XXXL

Sweat Shirts: Medium, Large, X-Large and XXL, XXXL

White Tube Socks: Women Sizes 6-10 and Men Sizes 9-12

New or Gently Worn Coats- All Sizes

We are accepting donations at our recuperative care facility at:
5136 W Washington blvd. 90016, on Monday through Friday, 9-4