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Provide vouchers for patients to buy produce at farm markets
YOUNGSTOWN
Fried chicken and greens. Mercy!
“Soul food is one of the most beautiful meals you can have, but in 20 to 30 years it will kill you, said African-American Arnold Dixon.
Dixon, 56, said his health was deteriorating until last year when he was turned on to St. Elizabeth Health Center’s Fruit and Vegetable Prescription Program.
The program helps make fresh, local produce available to under-served patients in Youngstown and Warren, considered food deserts, which are defined as areas where many residents don’t have access to fresh, affordable produce or even a grocery store, said Bridget Lackey, community health educator for Humility of Mary Health Partners.
And yes, it’s an actual prescription written by a St. Elizabeth physician telling patients to incorporate more fresh fruit and vegetables into their diet.
Dr. James Kravec, chairman of the internal medicine department at St. Elizabeth, said he often sees patients at the ambulatory care center with diabetes, high blood pressure and high cholesterol, many of whom don’t have the means or access to get fresh fruits and vegetables.
Although it’s too early to measure the program’s clinical impact, Dr. Kravec said he has noticed high patient satisfaction with the program. They especially like receiving written instructions to eat healthier.
“It’s easy to say ‘eat healthy,’” Dr. Kravec said. “But when there’s a method of following through, that makes it a lot more rewarding,” he said.
Here is how the program works, said Lackey.
Doctors at St. Elizabeth Ambulatory Care Center and St. Elizabeth Family Health Center in Youngstown, Austintown Family Health Center, and St. Joseph Community Care Center in Warren write prescriptions for patients they feel will benefit by adding fresh produce to their diets. Also, the Church Hill and Cortland Family Health Centers are participating this year.
Patients with prescriptions receive $25 vouchers for the once monthly, June through October, farmers’ markets at St. Elizabeth Health Center’s private dining rooms in Youngstown or outdoors at Warren Courthouse Square.
In addition to the vouchers, patients receive a packet with a vegetable brush, peeler, cutting board and apron, said Lackey, who also provides information about healthy cooking demonstrations.
Dixon, a 1977 graduate of South High School, who admitted he grew up with some bad eating habits, left Youngstown for Dearborn, Mich., where he worked 28 years in the auto industry as an electrician. He is a certified high voltage and high crane technician, graduated from the National Institute of Technology, and has been a card-carrying journey electrician with the United Autoworkers of America since he was 26.
But, when he had a hip replaced, he went on Social Security disability.
“I couldn’t do it anymore. All my work was 80 feet in the air,” he said.
He left Michigan and the Ford Motor Co. and $30 an hour in 2005 to come home to Youngstown and take care of his mother, Blanche Woods, a native of Youngstown. He said his first job here paid $13 an hour.
“My friends asked me how I could give that up. I said I could always find another job, but I could never find another mother,” Dixon said.
There was also a health upside to coming home for Dixon.
He said he was introduced to healthy eating by his counselor in 2010 when his hip went out. Also, tests found at that time that he had high blood pressure.
“It actually saved my life. High blood pressure is a silent killer, and I was not aware I had it,” Dixon said.
“The biggie is we stopped frying food and started baking and broiling meat. The pharmacist stayed on me about stopping drinking pop and using salt,” he said.
They recently celebrated his mother’s birthday: The menu was stuffed peppers and stuffed cabbage with no meat.
Dixon, who has three adult children, Ahmad Dixon, Aaron Ware, and Aieshya Dixon, and two grandsons, lives with his mother and fiancee, Leslie Dawson.
He said they have left behind a lot of fried, processed and canned foods that were not good for them.
The payoff: He said his blood pressure readings were normal at his last checkup for the first time in years.
“I give all the praise to God and all the credit to the clinic,” he said.