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FORUM'Soldiers' Take Aim at Community Health
The Egleston Square neighborhood of Roxbury is minutes away from the sophisticated MRIs, CT scans, and cutting-edge research facilities of Longwood Medical Area hospitals, labs, and classrooms, but miles away in terms of health care and educational resources. This neighborhood has some of the highest rates of poverty, violence, drug abuse, and HIV incidence in Boston. Amid these challenges is an innovative program working to engage the residents in improving their health. Soldiers of Health, a community-based organization that's an offshoot of the HMS-based Partners in Health, is training residents of the neighborhood as community health workers and succeeding in creating a grass-roots health movement. To ArmsSoldiers of Health was founded in 1995 by Maria Contreras, a Roxbury resident and longtime community activist concerned about the decline of the neighborhood. Together with Partners in Health, Soldiers of Health has trained health "soldiers"—community resident health workers—who organize health workshops and related activities. Partners in Health supports five community health projects around the world, the Soldiers organization being the only domestic project.Soldiers of Health is a place for neighborhood teens to meet and work on homework, attend workshops, and learn new skills. There has been a youth group within Soldiers throughout its five-year history, which currently is called B-City Voices. Led by Dr. Ken Fox, a pediatrician at the Boston Medical Center who is also an HMS faculty member in the Department of Social Medicine, and Andrew Hall, the son of Maria Contreras, B-City Voices consists of around 15 young men and women, all about age 15 and most of Puerto Rican or Dominican descent. Several HMS students, including second-years Jamal Harris, Evan Lyon, and Marshall Fordyce, have come to play an important role in directing and leading the group. According to Fordyce, who has been involved for several years, "There are not enough structured youth programs in neighborhoods like Egleston Square, in which teenagers have relationships with adults who can broaden the world they're exposed to in the neighborhood, on the street, and in families under the stress of being poor in the city." Fordyce has observed that the youths he has met through the program are facing teen pregnancy, poverty, and violence, as well as a lack of community and trust. B-City Voices is trying to take on these issues, which has led Fordyce to think deeply about disparities in access to health care in communities surrounding the medical area. "Health disparities play out in people's lives, which is something you witness when advocating in neighborhoods like Egleston Square: poverty, prejudice, hunger, threatening neighbors, lack of insurance, and lack of trust." Voices of ChangeFor Evan Lyon, B-City Voices is a kind of affirmation of the reasons he decided to become a physician. He said that the "only real reason I ever wanted to study medicine is to be involved in community with others and work as an advocate for change. This program has the chance to build a very concrete community among the adolescents we meet. Health and social justice education is just the excuse to bring us together."And although Lyon is unsure about how involved he will be in the coming clinical years, he is confident that the program is creating a critical mass of health educators within the community to build on what he and his colleagues have accomplished. "As we grow, the youths will gain more practical skills—by participating in projects, doing Web stuff, learning about health issues, learning about social justice and what can be done locally to advocate for positive change," he explained. "Hopefully, they will become a resource for the community. We would like to see them become peer leaders, peer educators around health and violence issues." —Erica Seiguer, a second-year MD–PhD student at HMS |
