American College of Lifestyle Medicine's Health Equity Initiative Expands Priorities to Include Federally Qualified Health Centers
An important element of this new strategy is ACLM's 5.5-hour CME/CE-accredited complimentary course, "Introduction to Lifestyle Medicine & Food as Medicine Essentials," available to health care providers nationwide, including those who typically serve historically medically underserved individuals disproportionately impacted by chronic disease.
ST. LOUIS, March 30, 2023 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- The American College of Lifestyle Medicine's (ACLM) HEAL (Health Equity Achieved through Lifestyle Medicine) Initiative announced today an additional strategic priority to continue addressing the needs of historically underserved groups that are at a higher risk for chronic disease. Effective April 1, 2023, HEAL leadership will add a focus on integrating lifestyle medicine into Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs) and Community Health Centers (CHCs).
An important element of this new strategy is ACLM's 5.5-hour CME/CE-accredited complimentary course, "Introduction to Lifestyle Medicine & Food as Medicine Essentials" course bundle. The course is available, at no cost, to health care providers across the country, including those at FQHCs who typically serve historically medically underserved individuals disproportionately impacted by chronic disease.
"With more than 1,400 FQHCs/CHCs in the nation, the impact that the clinicians from these institutions can have on addressing health care disparities is tremendous," said ACLM President and Harvard Medical School faculty member Beth Frates, MD, FACLM, DipABLM. "For that reason, ACLM is committed to executing a strategy, designed and developed by HEAL leaders, that will equip FQHC/CHC clinicians with lifestyle medicine education."
While addressing lifestyle as a first treatment option is the top recommendation in most chronic disease clinical guidelines, providers skip this step because of lack of formal training in nutrition and physical activity, as well as in other lifestyle domains. The free course, as part of ACLM's White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition and Health commitment, helps to fill the void of nutrition education that exists in medical and other health professional training.
As HEAL undergoes a leadership transition, also effective April 1, incoming leaders are gearing up to support ACLM in its efforts to offer the Essentials course bundle broadly, especially to those who are serving historically medically underserved patients. Incoming HEAL co-chairs are: David Bowman, MD, DipABLM and Qadira Ali Huff, MD, MPH, FAAP, DipABLM; and incoming HEAL secretary Daphne Bascom, MD, PhD. Dr. Bowman, an ACLM Board of Directors member, is a board-certified lifestyle medicine physician and pediatrician currently on faculty at Howard University College of Medicine's Pediatric and Child Health Department. Dr. Huff is a board-certified pediatrician, certified lifestyle medicine physician, and clinical assistant professor of pediatrics at George Washington School of Medicine and Health Sciences. She practices at Children's National Hospital. Dr. Bascom is a certified health coach and a principal health practice and systems engineer consultant with the VA Health, Innovation & Central Office. Each leader has laudable experience and has demonstrated their passion for health equity and lifestyle medicine.
Lifestyle medicine is a medical specialty that uses therapeutic lifestyle interventions as a primary modality to treat chronic conditions including, but not limited to, cardiovascular diseases, type 2 diabetes, and obesity. HEAL mobilizes its member base of health equity advocates from across the country and health care spectrum to share effective ways to reach medically underserved communities with limited-to-no-access to lifestyle medicine and/or health care, food insecurity, and other social determinants of health that impede on their ability to live healthy lifestyles.
The inaugural, outgoing HEAL co-chairs Terri Stone, MD, DipABLM, and Marsha-Gail Davis, MD, DipABLM, and secretary Erin Sinnaeve, DNP, FNP-C, set the foundation for the initiative alongside HEAL founder and former ACLM President Dexter Shurney, MD, MBA, MPH, DipABLM, in 2019. In 2020, ACLM convened some of the nation's foremost thought leaders at the inaugural Health Disparities Solution Summit to discuss how lifestyle medicine strategies can help bridge the gap between health disparities and the impact on racial and ethnic populations across the country. The recommended action steps were incorporated into HEAL priorities and the work became the HEAL Initiative.
Since its inception, the founding leaders have grown the Initiative to 450 interdisciplinary health team members who meet regularly to discuss practical and tangible ways to equitably treat and empower patients from all backgrounds with the tools they need to lead healthy lives. Another effort of the Initiative, the HEAL Scholarship Program, has provided training funding for underrepresented in medicine (UIM) physicians to diversify the lifestyle provider workforce. Since 2021, the HEAL Scholarship Program has awarded 36 full scholarships to UIM clinicians.
ABOUT ACLM
The American College of Lifestyle Medicine is the nation's medical professional society advancing lifestyle medicine as the foundation for a redesigned, value-based and equitable healthcare delivery system, leading to whole person health. ACLM educates, equips, empowers and supports its members through quality, evidence- based education, certification and research to identify and eradicate the root cause of chronic disease, with a clinical outcome goal of health restoration as opposed to disease management.
ABOUT HEAL
The American College of Lifestyle Medicine (ACLM) first established the Health Equity Achieved through Lifestyle Medicine (HEAL) Member Interest Group in 2019 to address lifestyle-related chronic disease health disparities. In 2020, ACLM convened some of the nation's foremost thought leaders at the inaugural Health Disparities Solution Summit to discuss how lifestyle medicine strategies can help bridge the gap between health disparities and the impact on racial and ethnic populations across the country. The recommended action steps were incorporated into HEAL priorities and the work became the HEAL Initiative. Over 450 health equity advocates from a myriad of specialties now connect monthly to discuss unique and effective ways to reach medically underserved communities experiencing health care access issues, food insecurity, and other social determinants of health that impede on their ability to live healthy lifestyles.
Media Contact
Stacia Johnston, American College of Lifestyle Medicine, 718-974-7213, sjohnston@lifestylemedicine.org
SOURCE American College of Lifestyle Medicine
