Celebrating “Black Health” Month in Brooklyn

by Dr. Lesly Kernisant

The East Flatbush community welcomes the new Morris Heights Health Center at 1095 Flatbush Avenue, Brooklyn, strategically located to serve the largest Caribbean-American community in New York City. Like other minority communities, the prevalence of heart disease and racial disparities are a noxious combination of factors that contribute to premature, but preventable deaths among blacks and other ethnic minorities.

February is not only a month to celebrate and honor our black achievers, but also a month to reflect on certain aspects of Health in Black America. During the entire month of February, red is the color in full display to celebrate the survivors of heart disease, the leading cause of death in both men and women in America. It is also important to note that Black Americans die of heart disease at a rate 30% higher than their white counterparts.

There are many factors for such a high prevalence among races and ethnic groups. Of course, besides the obvious ill-effects of poverty, there are environmental factors, genetic make-up, and behavioral characteristics that are considered major risk factors as well. Also, the social construct that defines race in America also creates the living condition that provides health equity to a dominant race. The country’s health system was originally designed to favor the rich at the expense of the poor. The ability to prevent and alleviate heart-related maladies can only be afforded by the rich while the daily stress of life continues to erode the poor people’s lifespan.

When one considers the high rate of obesity, smoking, poor nutrition, physical inactivity, high incidence of stress-related hypertension, diabetes added to the health constraints deeply embedded in systemic racism, some of these risk factors could easily be modified to prevent some of deleterious effects of heart diseases.

The Morris Heights Health organization, by expanding into the Brooklyn healthcare market, made a commitment to change these sobering health statistics in a community with the highest reported rate of hypertension, diabetes, and poor black maternal health outcome. These days, the Brooklyn healthcare market is intensely competitive attracting new players such as the major academic centers from Manhattan after new markets created by the recent demographic shift in the borough, the urgent care centers chasing after the quick and episodic young “care seekers”, and the many retail pharmacies extending into traditional clinical services.

 Different from by this sudden proliferation of health centers being opened in response to business opportunity of a widespread gentrification phenomenon, the MHHC-Brooklyn center at 1095 Flatbush Avenue, Brooklyn was conceived with a different set of goals and purposes. It is a community project with the specific mission of providing access to health services sorely needed by a subset of vulnerable residents.

The overarching goal is to reverse the trend of worst health stats in Flatbush in terms of premature deaths from chronic diseases such as heart disease and cancers. It is a full-service center offering a comprehensive array of services to ensure continuity and long-term care plan to the people of East Flatbush. It has a simple mission: improving the health of the community by putting outcome over profit and quality over quantity. That will be achieved through easy access to care with a menu of quality, patient-centricity, and affordability.