If something is wrong with me, I don’t wanna know. My health is just fine. I don’t feel comfortable at clinics. I don’t know how to work my insurance. I just don’t want any bad news right now.
Those are many of the things we say to ourselves when it comes to checking up on our health. Getting the information we need to first of all, tay healthy, and, secondly, find out if we do need treatments or tests can be difficult for many of us, especially in communities of color.
But recently, Madison has unexpectedly lost two world class individuals with deep community connections: Photographer Marcus Miles and Chef Rod Ladson, which has sparked a need for conversation. Both men died far too young of health issues that may have been preventable.
A Town Hall to talk about health issues in the Black community, particularly pertaining to black men, is taking place on Thursday night at St.Mary’s Conference Center at 700 South Park from 5:30-7pm.
The town hall is being hosted by Rebalanced-Life Wellness Association and is being called because black men are dying younger and younger every year, with the causes of death being from what are mostly preventable health issues.
Studies have shown the life expectancy of black men to be down to age 51 in many areas. In many cases, men don’t come forward with health issues they are experiencing and, to compound the issue, the health care community could do more to help.
“Black men in the community are dying from things that are preventable,” said Joshua Wright, Community Outreach Coordinator for Rebalanced-Life Wellness Association, in an interview with Madison365. “There have been two men in particular who had a little more visibility in the community and they passed away, Marcus Miles and Rod Ladson. Those are just two men we know who passed away from heart attacks. We know there have been other men that have been suffering and have passed away. So we wanted to get a conversation started and some understanding of what these issues are in terms of their preventability and make people aware that black men’s health is in crisis.”
Wright has done work in the community helping get people to participate in things like Black Men Run, which is a weekend morning group that allows men to exercise mostly at their own pace.
Wright pointed to issues like economic stability, gainful employment and housing stability as being little known factors in the health of black men.
“We want to have a discussion about what the solutions to these social stresses are that contribute to early death. All of those things are interconnected in terms of what kind of stress people feel on a daily basis and while stress can’t be medically quantified, these things impact health.”
Health education resources and a frank discussion about the state of black men’s health will be key points of the discussion.
“We definitely want to raise awareness and get the message out there that things can be done,” Wright said.
