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Happy month of May Savannah! It's nearly mid-year! Surprised yet?! This month's newsletter has an eclectic combination of content for you to digest and share with your family, friends, and community. We start you off with a brief glimpse of our 2023 Annual Healthy Savannah Meeting & Breakfast we held yesterday! A shout-out to our Physical Activity manager, Armand Turner, and his Golden Shoe Award. Keep scrolling to read about W.E.B Du Bois's contribution to public health; a mini analysis of our HeroHelpMe resource directory from our 2022 community survey; a call for awareness of mental health and how mental health influences women's health; and we finalize with a great community resource - a vaccine clinic offered by the Chatham County Health Department.
In Health,
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- Friday May 5th: Cinco de Mayo
- Sunday May 14th: Mother's Day
- Saturday May 20th: Armed Forces Day
- Monday May 29th: Memorial Day
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Healthy Savannah Annual Meeting
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We are proud to celebrate our 16th year anniversary of working towards a healthier Savannah! We recognized our board members, staff, interns, volunteers and all of our 200+ public-private partners for forming this incredible coalition! Because without this collective effort, we would not be able to do the work we do. Since the formation of Healthy Savannah, partnership work has been crucial for the growth and execution of policy, environmental and cultural change. In recognizing these partnerships, Loop It Up Savannah was awarded the Health Innovation Award for the Mindfulness Zone Program!
Healthy Savannah had the honor to have keynote speaker, Montrece McNeill Ranson, JD, MPH, ACC, BCC. Thank you Montrece for an impactful and inspiring presentation on our sense of belonging.
Healthy Savannah would like to thank all sponsors that made this 2023 annual meeting possible. A big thank you to all who attended and shared with us the recognition of our milestones and efforts.
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Armand Turner Wins 2023 Golden Shoe Award
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Bike Walk Savannah awarded the Golden Shoe Award to our Physical Activity Manager, Armand Turner. The award recognizes Armand's commitment and dedication to identifying safe places to walk in Savannah and Chatham County. Armand has led our Tuesdays' healthy walks for 3 years and has played a role in supporting the construction of the Tide to Town trail. You can catch Armand's live health walk feeds on our Facebook page and you can read more about Tide to Town here.
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Public Health History Highlight
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William Edward Burghardt Du Bois was born in Great Barrington Massachusetts on February 23rd, 1868 and died August 27th, 1963. He attended Fisk College in Nashville, Tennessee and in 1888 was admitted to Harvard where he became the first African American to receive a PhD in the year of 1895. Du Bois was a historian, author, activist, and was the most important Black protest leader in the first half of the 20th century.
Du Bois was a global scholar who confronted the systemic inequalities in America and around the world. In 1896 he was invited by the University of Pennsylvania to conduct a study of the Seventh Ward in Philadelphia. It took him 835 hours to conduct interviews and gather all data necessary to publish his 1899 social epidemiology study, titled "The Philadelphia Negro". In this empirical study, Du Bois examined how systemic racism resulted in an ubiquitous social exposure to inequalities in socioeconomic status, education, employment, and criminal justice. This study of social structural factors and their impact on health outcomes was revolutionary in the 19th century. Du Bois went on to be a prominent figure as a civil rights pioneer with his book, The Souls of Black Folk, and as a founding member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).
If you would like to read more about W.E.B Du Bois click the links below. Sources:
After 121 Years, It’s Time to Recognize W.E.B. Du Bois as a Founding Father of Social Epidemiology
W.E.B DU Bois
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2022 Healthy Savannah Community Survey
HeroHelpMe
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Since 2015 Healthy Savannah has been engaged with collecting community feedback on healthy food, active living, communication dissemination knowledge and behaviors. We collected 642 surveys from the community to know how helpful the HeroHelpMe resource directory website has been. In a comparison between 2021 and 2022, there was a 37% increase usage of HeroHelpMe, and 55% of the 642 respondents reported that HeroHelpMe was "extremely helpful" in finding local resources. If you need assistance with senior services, financial matters, housing, or health. Please visit the HeroHelpMe database for these and many other services.
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Mental Health Awareness Month
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Mental health is our emotional, psychological, and social well-being. It affects how we think, feel, and act, and helps determine how we handle stress, relate to others, and make choices. It is important at every stage of life from childhood to adulthood. According to the National Institute of Mental Health, nearly one-in-five adults live with a mental illness.We all have our different ways of "recharging". For many it may be taking a five-minute stretching break or dancing! Lifestyle modifications can have a big impact on mental health.
Have you heard of endorphins? They are the body's "natural pain killers". Evidence has shown that endorphins relieve stress and contribute to a sense of well-being. The best way to release endorphins is by engaging in any type of exercise! Aerobic exercises such as jogging, swimming, cycling, walking, and dancing, have been proved to reduce anxiety and depression.
But movement is not the only factor that influences our mental health. Did you know that your diet plays an important role too? Yes, what we eat does have an impact on how we may feel. Foods and drinks pumped with refined sugars such as sodas, cookies, candy, store-bought juice, and ice cream among many other products have been correlated with impaired brain function and exacerbation of symptoms in mood disorders such as depression.
Ingesting a balanced diet with fruits and vegetables will help to promote high levels of optimism and self-efficacy. So let's get moving and eat more fruits and vegetables for a healthy mind and body!
If you know someone in crisis call or text 988 or chat 988lifeline.org
For more information please go to:
What Is Mental Health?
Exercise for Mental Health
Fruit and Vegetable Intake and Mental Health in Adults: A Systematic Review
Nutritional psychiatry: Your brain on food
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Women are affected by mental health issues differently than men. Depression and anxiety are more common in women. During hormonal change women may experience perinatal depression, premenstrual dysphoric disorder, and perimenopause-related depression.
Our diets play a key role in the onset and/or duration of depressive symptoms. We all have an ecosystem inside our gut called microbiome, different types of bacteria live in this ecosystem and are necessary for good health. Recent research has shown that the nerve cells lining the gastrointestinal tract have the ability to communicate or connect with the brain; hence a well balance microbiome is essential for optimal mental health. Foods such as lentils, bananas, broccoli and asparagus help nourish good bacteria in our gastrointestinal tract. Although research suggests that there needs to be a more in-depth evaluation of the communication between the gut and the brain, it is clear that there is an evident link.
Not sure how to start a balanced diet? Visit our Facebook or Instagram profile for quick, healthy, and tasty recipes!
To read more on the sources please visit:
The Connection Between Diet and Mental Health
Women and Mental Health
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If you would like to support the work we do with a financial contribution you can do so HERE |
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