St. Bernards Leading and Emerging African-American Professionals (LEAAP) will host the LEAAPing Into Heart Health event on Saturday, February 2 from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. as part of the Staying Alive Series.
The event will be hosted at St. Bernards Health & Wellness, and will offer health screenings, healthy cooking demonstrations, smoking cessation assistance, fitness tips, and prizes and giveaways, completely free of charge.
The Staying Alive Series is a program which was created by LEAAP in order to offer health screenings and education to an affinity group which can be at a higher risk for health problems than others: the African-American community.
“I met with other African-American leaders at St. Bernards to begin LEAAP in order to not only connect professionals at St. Bernards, but to introduce a community aspect with this affinity group,” said Kinyata Gray, Employee Relations Manager at St. Bernards. “According to the Centers for Disease Control, heart disease is the leading cause of death for African-Americans, and age-adjusted mortality rates for blacks are 1.2 times higher than they are for whites. Craighead County is ninth in the state in heart disease mortality rates. That being said, heart health is one of the first things we wanted to focus on.”
With February being American Heart Month, Gray and LEAAP decided to make LEAAPing Into Heart Health their first event and want to continue these efforts into the rest of the year with things like mental health awareness and healthy lifestyle promotion.
For more information, please call the St. Bernards Healthline at 870.207.7300 or visit stbernards.info.