Recent News

Statewide Grant Brings Healthier Options To Baltimore Food Deserts (CBS)

Jul 20th, 2017

BALTIMORE (WJZ)–  The Baltimore City Health Department announced a $150,000 state grant to expand the “Baltimarket” program, making it easier for corner stores to carry healthy foods.

The new funds will provide credits, advertising and training to 40 more corner stores throughout the City to carry fresh fruits and vegetables.

This will bridge the gap for one in four Baltimoreans who live without easy access to healthy food.

“Baltimarket offers an innovative and effective way to increase access to fresh and healthy foods,” said Surina Ann Jordan with Maryland Community Health Resources.

“How can our patients eat well when they live in areas of food deserts? Where they have to go and take two buses or walk 25 blocks in order to get healthy fruits and vegetables,” said City health commissioner Dr. Leana Wen.

The inventory goes hand-and-hand with education; teaching customers that they can sub out unhealthy foods in their diet. The lessons come from hired youth ambassadors like high school senior Eva Wise.

“Some people were really surprised. They’re like, ‘wow, oh my gosh! They were like I need to change, I need to change,'” Wise said.

Read the entire story.

 

Summer heat can be tough for those working outdoors (Fox 45)

Jul 20th, 2017

Summer heat can be tough for those working outdoors

BALTIMORE (WBFF) -The summer sizzle has set into Baltimore, and for people who must work outdoors, the conditions can be tough. According to the Baltimore City Health Department there are 115 licensed food trucks. Brian Youse is the chef insid the ‘Crossroads Bistro’, which was parked Monday outside Baltimore City Hall.

“We have had it get up to 110 [degrees] in here," he explains. “We have two fans up top. They help a little bit, and just keep the back window for a little bit of a breeze."

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Letter in Support for Teen Pregnancy Prevention Funding

Jul 20th, 2017

TO:                Senator Chris Van Hollen
FROM:          Dr. Leana Wen, Baltimore City Health Commissioner
RE:                Support for Adolescent Health Education

Dear Senator Van Hollen:

On July 6, 2017, the Baltimore City Health Department (BCHD) received notice from the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Adolescent Health (OAH) that the grant period for the U Choose evidence-based program would be shortened by two years, which will reduce the overall funding for this program by $3.5M over two years. This change will result in reduced access to evidence-based teen pregnancy curricula for thousands of students in Baltimore, creating a vacuum of critical health education for thousands of vulnerable teens.

Baltimore City Health Commissioner Declares Code Red Heat Advisory for Artscape Weekend

Jul 19th, 2017

BALTIMORE, MD (July 19, 2017) – With a heat index of between 101 and 104 degrees expected beginning tomorrow through the weekend, Baltimore City Health Commissioner Dr. Leana Wen has issued a Code Red Heat Advisory for Thursday, July 20, 2017 through Sunday, July 23, 2017. The heat index is a measure of air temperature and relative humidity and indicates how hot it feels to individuals outside.

Baltimore City Health Department Announces New Funding to Improve Healthy Food Access

Jul 19th, 2017

BALTIMORE, MD (July 18, 2017)— The Baltimore City Health Department (BCHD) has received a two year, $150,000 grant from the Maryland Community Health Resources Commission (CHRC) to support the department’s Baltimarket Healthy Stores Program. The funding will be used to grow the program by 40 corner stores over a two year period and to hire 40 young people as nutrition educators. Stores will receive advertising materials for healthy foods and trainings about how to select and store healthy foods.

Despite Trump promises, White House falling short in opioid fight (CBS News)

Jul 17th, 2017

BALTIMORE -- As Republicans in Congress and the Trump White House continue to craft a health care bill 30 miles to the south, two people overdose on opioids and die every day in Maryland's largest city.

On a street corner in west Baltimore, the extent of the opioid epidemic that has ravaged large swaths of the country was in stark relief Wednesday against the backdrop of a brick wall emblazoned with the words "No Shoot Zone" in spray paint.

In 95-degree heat, men and women of all ages -- black and white -- filed one by one into a white van and dumped out bundles of used needles. Workers with the Baltimore City Health Department handed out brown paper bags containing clean syringes, cookers, filters and rubber bands in exchange. Those who came to turn in their old equipment were users of heroin, fentanyl and carfentanil, a toxic synthetic opioid.

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As opioid overdoses exact a higher price, communities ponder who should be saved (Washington Post)

Jul 17th, 2017

MIDDLETOWN, Ohio — The coroner here in the outer suburbs of Cincinnati gets the call almost every day.

Man “slumped over the dining room table.” Woman “found in the garage.” Man “found face down on the kitchen floor of his sister’s residence.” Man “on his bedroom floor — there was a syringe beneath the body.” Coroner Lisa K. Mannix chronicles them all in autopsy reports.

With 96 fatal overdoses in just the first four months of this year, Mannix said the opioid epidemic ravaging western Ohio and scores of other communities along the Appalachian Mountains and the rivers that flow from it continues to worsen. Hospitals are overwhelmed with overdoses, small-town morgues are running out of space for the bodies, and local officials from Kentucky to Maine are struggling to pay for attempting to revive, rehabilitate or bury the victims.

Read the entire story. 

Maine, other states hit hard by opioids question how to revive addicts (Bangor Daily News)

Jul 17th, 2017

MIDDLETOWN, Ohio – The coroner here in the outer suburbs of Cincinnati gets the call almost every day.

Man “slumped over the dining room table.” Woman “found in the garage.” Man “found face down on the kitchen floor of his sister’s residence.” Man “on his bedroom floor – there was a syringe beneath the body.” Coroner Lisa K. Mannix chronicles them all in autopsy reports.

With 96 fatal overdoses in just the first four months of this year, Mannix said the opioid epidemic ravaging western Ohio and scores of other communities along the Appalachian Mountains and the rivers that flow from it continues to worsen. Hospitals are overwhelmed with overdoses, small-town morgues are running out space for the bodies, and local officials from Kentucky to Maine are struggling to pay for attempting to revive, rehabilitate or bury the victims.

As their budgets strain, communities have begun questioning how much money and effort they should be spending to deal with overdoses, especially in cases involving people who have taken near-fatal overdoses multiple times. State and local officials say it might be time for “tough love”: pushing soaring medical costs onto drug abusers or even limiting how many times first responders can save an individual’s life.

“It’s not that I don’t want to treat overdose victims, it’s that the city cannot afford to treat overdose victims,” said Middletown Council Member Daniel Picard, noting this industrial town in northern Butler County might have to raise taxes in response to the crisis.

Read the entire story.

Note from the Commissioner: Stay Alert with Extreme Summer Heat

Jul 14th, 2017

Yesterday, we declared the first Code Red extreme heat alert this summer in Baltimore City. To protect our residents from adverse health effects from extreme heat, the city enacted a multi-agency response to provide heat safety education and cooling relief to vulnerable populations in Baltimore.

Excessive high temperatures are a silent killer and a public health threat, particularly for the young, the elderly and those in our city who are the most vulnerable. It is important for all residents to protect against hyperthermia and dehydration by staying cool and hydrated as the heat continues throughout this summer. 

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The U.S. should rethink its entire approach to painkillers and the people addicted to them, panel urges (LA Times)

Jul 14th, 2017

To reverse a still-spiraling American crisis fueled by prescription narcotic drugs, a panel of experts advising the federal government has recommended sweeping changes in the ways that physicians treat pain, their patients cope with pain, and government and private insurers support the care of people living with chronic pain.

In a comprehensive report on what must be done to staunch the toll of opiates in the United States, a panel of the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine makes clear that steps needed to prevent the creation of future opiate addicts will drive some people who are now dependent on these medications toward street drugs such as fentanyl and heroin.

“It is therefore ethically imperative to couple a strategy for reducing lawful access to opioids with an investment in treatment for the millions of individuals” already hooked on the painkillers, the panel wrote.

Read the entire story. 

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