Talking to his patients about keeping up with their heart medications can be “preaching to the choir,” said Dr. Elijah Saunders, professor of medicine at the University of Maryland Medical Center.
So when he?s not practicing at the Maryland Heart Center, Saunders preaches his message to real choirs and parishioners and barbershop customers and anybody else he can get in a captive audience.
In his practice, Saunders said he tries to reach out to family members to help patients stick with their treatment. Outside the heart center, he reaches out to their barbers, hair stylists and churches.
“We?re using a different venue to educate people about their health,” said Jeanne Charleston, director of the citywide Church/Community Health Awareness and Monitoring Program.
Program workers arrange speaking engagements for Saunders, as well as provide blood pressure clinics after worship services.
The stakes are high: life or death for the black population.
Blacks have the highest cardiovascular death rate of any ethnic group in the U.S., due in part to high rates of elevated cholesterol and high blood pressure. Despite this, Saunders said blacks are much less likely than Caucasians to have control of their blood pressure and cholesterol.
He said the problem gets worse when multiple drug regimens are layered.
Data presented at the American Society of Hypertension?s annual meeting this year showed treatment with a single pill may help black patients manage both blood pressure and cholesterol, two important, modifiable risk factors for heart disease and stroke.
The Capable trial, one of only a handful of clinical trials ever conducted to examine the benefits of a medication specifically among the black population, found almost half of blacks in the study with high blood pressure and elevated low-density lipoprotein, or “bad,” cholesterol, reached treatment goals for both conditions.
The University of Maryland Medical Center in Baltimore participated in that study.
Statistics show the death rate for cardiovascular disease in Maryland is 316.7 people per 100,000, according to the American Heart Association.
