Health Net Community Solutions Salutes Three Kern County Groups for Helping Build Healthier Communities

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TCWF Honors Health Education Leaders Committed To Underserved Communities

LOS ANGELES, May 30, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Three dedicated leaders in health education will be honored by The California Wellness Foundation (TCWF) as the 2012 Champions of Health Professions Diversity for their successful efforts to improve the health and wellness of California's most underserved communities. Lawrence "Hy" Doyle of the David Geffen School of Medicine at University of California, Los Angeles, provides skills and opportunities for disadvantaged students to enter and succeed in medical school. Peter Manoleas is an educator at the School of Social Welfare at the University of California, Berkeley, mental health clinician in Oakland and health policy leader with a focus on ensuring access to mental health services. Angela Minniefield recently became vice president of strategic advancement at Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science in Los Angeles and previously directed programs to increase the diversity of the health professions at the Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development in Sacramento.

On June 12, 2012, TCWF will honor these three leaders at its tenth annual "Champions of Health Professions Diversity Award" ceremony in San Francisco. In recognition of their efforts to mentor and inspire students, increase access to higher education and better serve the health and well-being of California's underserved and disadvantaged communities, each honoree will each receive a cash award of $25,000.

"The honorees have dedicated their careers to helping California's underrepresented minority students join the health workforce and improving health access and outcomes in underserved communities," said Diana M. Bonta, TCWF president and chief executive officer. "The Foundation is proud to honor these leaders at our tenth consecutive awards ceremony and share this milestone with them."

As one of the only California foundations making grants in this area, TCWF has awarded more than $45 million to increase the diversity of the health workforce through a variety of approaches, including research, scholarship and loan repayment programs and leadership recognition. A number of factors have contributed to the Foundation's decade-long commitment to increasing California's health workforce and its diversity. Research from the Foundation confirms serious health worker shortages across the state, particularly in primary care and allied health professions, as well as a lack of racial and ethnic diversity in the health workforce.

"Ensuring a diverse health workforce requires commitment and perseverance of leaders at all levels of both our education and health care systems," said Cristina M. Regalado, TCWF vice president of programs.

Lawrence "Hy" Doyle, Ed.D.
For more than three decades, Lawrence "Hy" Doyle has used his expertise in developing student test-taking abilities and learning skills to improve opportunities for underrepresented minority students to succeed in higher education. He is currently the executive director of the Program in Medical Education (PRIME) at the David Geffen School of Medicine at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). UCLA PRIME is a five-year dual-degree program which works to develop the leadership skills of medical students committed to improving healthcare in medically underserved communities. Doyle also provides guidance to disadvantaged students through UCLA's Summer Medical and Dental Program and the UCLA Hispanic Center of Excellence.

"Remarkably often, students whose numbers weren't that good, but have personal significant experience are the ones who truly relate to patients," Doyle said. "That's the goal of the PRIME program, to develop leaders for underserved and disadvantaged communities in California."

Peter Manoleas, M.S.W., L.C.S.W.
As a social work clinician, educator, consultant and administrator with a focus on mental health and substance abuse issues, Peter Manoleas has dedicated his career to ensuring that underserved communities of color have access to mental health services. Since 1983, Manoleas has been a lecturer and field work consultant at the School of Social Welfare at the University of California, Berkeley. He also maintains a private clinical practice based in Oakland and has served for more than 25 years on the board of directors for La Clinica de La Raza, one of the largest community-based clinics in the state committed to providing culturally appropriate, high-quality care.

"To be involved in a diversified workforce, we must practice cultural humility," said Manoleas. "We cannot be experts on everyone, so we need to continue to learn from our patients."

Angela L. Minniefield, M.P.A.
Angela Minniefield worked for 20 years in state government advancing policies and programs that increase the number of underrepresented students in health professions. Minniefield recently became the vice president of strategic advancement at Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science. She previously held several leadership positions at the state Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development, including deputy director of the Healthcare Workforce Development Division.

"Not only is increasing access to higher education imperative in developing and diversifying California's health workforce," said Minniefield,  "there is also a direct relationship between one's educational background and his or her own health status."

The California Wellness Foundation is a private independent foundation created in 1992 with a mission to improve the health of the people of California by making grants for health promotion, wellness education and disease prevention. The Foundation prioritizes eight issues for funding: diversity in the health professions, environmental health, healthy aging, mental health, teenage pregnancy prevention, violence prevention, women's health and work and health. It also responds to timely issues and special projects outside the funding priorities.

Since its founding in 1992, TCWF has awarded 6,544 grants totaling more than $815 million. Please visit TCWF's website at CalWellness.org for more information, including a newsroom section devoted to the award and the three honorees. High-resolution photos are available. Video interview clips are posted at TCWF's YouTube channel.

Note to reporters & editors:
"The" in "The California Wellness Foundation" is part of the Foundation's legal name. Please do not drop or lowercase the "T."

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Personal Health: Communities Learn the Good Life Can Be a Killer

Christopher T. MartinACTIVE ANTIDOTE Atlanta transformed an old rail corridor into a trail network that encourages walking and biking.

Developers in the last half-century called it progress when they built homes and shopping malls far from city centers throughout the country, sounding the death knell for many downtowns. But now an alarmed cadre of public health experts say these expanded metropolitan areas have had a far more serious impact on the people who live there by creating vehicle-dependent environments that foster obesity, poor health, social isolation, excessive stress and depression.

As a result, these experts say, our “built environment” — where we live, work, play and shop — has become a leading cause of disability and death in the 21st century. Physical activity has been disappearing from the lives of young and old, and many communities are virtual “food deserts,” serviced only by convenience stores that stock nutrient-poor prepared foods and drinks.

According to Dr. Richard J. Jackson, professor and chairman of environmental health sciences at the University of California, Los Angeles, unless changes are made soon in the way many of our neighborhoods are constructed, people in the current generation (born since 1980) will be the first in America to live shorter lives than their parents do.

Although a decade ago urban planning was all but missing from public health concerns, a sea change has occurred. At the annual meeting of the American Public Health Association in October, Dr. Jackson said, there were about 300 presentations on how the built environment inhibits or fosters the ability of people to be physically active and get healthy food.

In a healthy environment, he said, “people who are young, elderly, sick or poor can meet their life needs without getting in a car,” which means designing communities where it is safe and enjoyable to walk, bike, take in nature and socialize.

“People who walk more weigh less and live longer,” Dr. Jackson said. “People who are fit live longer. People who have friends and remain socially active live longer. We don’t need to prove all of this,” despite the plethora of research reports demonstrating the ill effects of current community structures.

“We’ve become the victims of our own success,” he said of the public health mission that cleared cities of congested slums. “By living far from where we work, we reduced crowding and improved the quality of our air and water, which drove down rates of infectious disease.” But as people have moved farther and farther from where they work, shop and socialize, the rates of chronic diseases have soared.

Public transportation has not kept pace with the expansion of suburbs and exurbs. Nor are there enough sidewalks, nearby parks and safe places to walk, cycle or play outdoors in many, if not most, towns. Parents spend hours in cars getting to and from work; children are bused or driven to and from school; and those who can’t drive must depend on others to take them everywhere or risk becoming socially isolated.

In 1974, 66 percent of all children walked or biked to school. By 2000, that number had dropped to 13 percent.

“Children who grow up in suburbia can’t meet their life needs without getting a ride somewhere,” Dr. Jackson said. “The average teen in suburbia says it’s boring.”

His new book, “Designing Healthy Communities,” a companion piece to a coming public television series, says: “When there is nearly nothing within walking distance to interest a young person and it is near-lethal to bicycle, he or she must relinquish autonomy — a capacity every creature must develop just as much as strength and endurance.” The book was written with Stacy Sinclair, director of education at the Media Policy Center in Santa Monica, Calif.

“We’ve engineered physical activity out of children’s lives,” Dr. Jackson said in an interview. “Only a quarter of the children in California can pass a basic fitness test, and two in seven volunteers for the military can’t get in because they’re not in good enough physical condition.”

The health consequences, he said, are terrifying. Not only are Americans of all ages fatter than ever, but also growing numbers of children are developing diseases once seen only in adults: Type 2 diabetes, heart disease and fatty livers.

Can our suburbs be saved?

The four-part series that Dr. Jackson developed with the documentary producers Dale Bell and Harry Wiland, to be broadcast in the spring, highlights changes being made in forward-thinking communities — changes that foster better physical and mental health by redesigning the built environment.

“Health happens in neighborhoods, not doctors’ offices,” Dr. Jackson states in one of the programs.

Metropolitan Atlanta, which is 8,000 square miles and growing and where workers drive an average of 66 miles a day, has suffered the ill effects of high ozone levels, few sidewalks and bike lanes, and crosswalks as much as a mile apart. In what may be the crown jewel in environmental restructuring for better health, Atlanta created an urban paradise from an abandoned railroad corridor, with light rail and 22 miles of walking and biking trails that enable everyone, including people with disabilities, to get to any place they want to go.

In Lakewood, Colo., an abandoned shopping mall (a blight now rampant in suburbia) in the Belmar district was converted into housing, businesses and play areas that foster community.

Syracuse, where superhighways cut through and destroyed neighborhoods, is converting an old saltworks district into a mixed-income, energy-smart housing and business area, giving residents easy access to workplaces and outdoor recreation. The local supermarket, Nojaim’s, offers health and nutrition classes and weekly health checks, and a mobile farmers’ market services an area that lacks grocery stores.

Another jewel in environmental restructuring is Elgin, Ill., where an island park was created in the middle of the rejuvenated Fox River and a former Superfund site known as auto dealers’ row is now Festival Park, giving families a place to gather for water play, picnics and musical performances. A Bikeway Master Plan will eventually connect all the neighborhoods, and easy access to the river has spurred investment.

“For every dollar the city has spent, we have leveraged that into two or three dollars of private investment through new kinds of buildings, row houses and businesses that have opened because the river has a magnetic quality,” said a former mayor of Elgin, Ed Schock. He might have added another economic benefit: the prospect of lower health care costs.

Further information on healthier communities can be found at designinghealthycommunities.org.

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Health Net Community Solutions Centers Offer Free Health and Wellness Activities to Local Communities They Serve

LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- As 2012 begins and we focus on our New Year’s resolutions, Health Net, Inc. (NYSE: HNT - News) wants to remind you that one of the best gifts we can give to ourselves is to help ourselves be healthy.

You are not alone if your New Year’s resolution includes improving your health. According to FC Organizational Products LLC, which annually publishes the top ten New Year’s resolutions, two of the top three New Year’s resolutions for 2012 are health related: 1. Become more physically fit; and 2. Improve one’s health.

In the spirit of kick-starting the New Year on a healthy note, Health Net’s Community Solutions Centers (CSC) offer a large variety of free fitness and health-related classes, activities and events every month. In fact, the centers provide these services and health education classes all year long to all local residents, both kids and adults, alike.

Examples of activities to participate in:

Fun Fitness for Kids, Adults and Seniors Zumba Exercise Class Educational classes on topics such as cancer, heart disease, etc. Support groups that deal with depression, alcoholism, etc. Meditation

In addition to these health-promoting classes, the CSCs also offer a full scope of free activities that extend beyond health and fitness. Using the expertise of local government agencies and local community groups, the centers provide activities ranging from educational classes on cancer and prevention (Fresno) to knitting beanies for cancer patients at a local children’s hospital (East Los Angeles) to passing out free bread to the local community (Stanislaus).

Adding these positive New Year’s resolutions into your daily routine is a great way to start the New Year and help maintain a healthy lifestyle. Getting involved in one’s own wellness is key to leading a healthy life and what better way to do it, while connecting with other members in your community.

Health Net is proud to offer these educational services and events to the communities it serves.

Community Solutions Center locations:

About Health Net of California

Health Net of California, Inc., a subsidiary of Health Net, Inc., is one of the largest health plans in the state. Together with Health Net Life Insurance Company, it serves more than 2.2 million members statewide and contracts with 67,000-plus physicians, 300-plus hospitals and 5,000-plus pharmacies, giving its members greater choice and more convenient access to care. For more information about Health Net, visit the website at www.healthnet.com.

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