By Carrie Buchanan
A small but keenly interested group of journalists gathered June 2 in Cleveland to learn about a new public health initiative in Northeast Ohio that its founder hopes will become a model for communities across the country.
It's called the Jewish Community Health Initiative and it's the brainchild of Mendel Singer, Ph.D., a public health professor at Case Western Reserve University.
A cultural or religious community – in this case, Cleveland's 80,000 Jews – offers a range of support for disseminating public health messages and encouraging healthier behavior, Singer said. It's also great for gathering data and feedback, he said, which enable research and continuous improvements to the project.
In this way, the Jewish community is like the Latino community, the Black community or the Asian-American community: its members share similar diets and lifestyles, which may contribute to or detract from perfect health. They also communicate with one another through cultural institutions like synagogues, temples and schools.
Jewish health care is not only about diseases that specifically attack Jews, such as Tay-Sachs, Gaucher and Niemann-Pick, Singer noted. The health problems that affect the highest numbers of Jews are the same ones that predominate among non-Jews in America: heart disease, diabetes, obesity and cancer. Thus, the Jewish Community Health Initiative – whose mission is prevention rather than cure – focuses on reducing health problems common in the population at large, Singer said. This also means the Jewish Health Care Initiative can serve as a model for the cultural dissemination of health messages and initiatives in other populations.
Singer believes in using what he calls the "I-E-R approach" to public health – that is, convincing individuals they can make a real difference by getting just a bit healthier, losing just a few pounds or changing a few eating habits, rather than aiming for perfect health. When this approach is combined with a supportive community, Singer hopes, it can make a significant difference to that group's overall health and life expectancies. This remains to be seen; the Jewish Health Care Initiative has only just begun. It will soon be accompanied by a website that Singer hopes to launch later this summer.
Working in the Jewish community is based on understanding that community, Singer stressed. The fact that Singer is an Orthodox Jew has made a difference to the design of the initiative he started. Were it to spread to other communities, he noted, adaptations would be needed but would not be that difficult to make.
With a view to increasing that community understanding, the Cleveland-area journalists also heard from Rabbi Akiva Feinstein, chaplain at the Vinney Hospice and Palliative Care program of Montefiore, in suburban Beachwood, Ohio. He explained some of the sub-groups in Cleveland's Jewish population and their particular health issues.
For example, when dealing with the Orthodox community, a little cultural sensitivity can go a long way, Feinstein said. Respecting the community's belief in modesty, its kosher habits, its strict observance of the sabbath, and the role of rabbis in working with families, can build trust between patients and health-care professionals and improve compliance with medical instructions.
When dealing with people's medical and end-of-life needs, it's important to understand the particular issues faced by Holocaust survivors and Russian immigrants as well as Orthodox Jews, Feinstein said. Each of these communities comprises a significant segment of Cleveland's Jewish population.
More on Feinstein's talk was reported by attendee Pohla Smith, in an article that ran soon after the session in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. In addition, editor Michael Bennett of the Cleveland Jewish News was busy as the session ended, making plans with Singer for future articles and help promoting the initiative.
