Streamlining Project Health
Project Health, a national undergraduate service organization founded by a Harvard undergraduate 20 years ago, seeks to make good, consistent health care accessible to poorer communities by providing people with knowledge and resources .
Project Health has spread significantly since its birth, establishing sites across the country. The Columbia division is separated into six branches, each with a different focus. Four concentrate on specific diseases or health concerns and teach the patients how to best deal with their illnesses such as sickle cell anemia, HIV/AIDS, Type 1 diabetes, and asthma.
Within the program, each volunteer is assigned a “mentee” with whom they meet every week.
Elizabeth Edwards, BC ’10, and a Project Health member, works with children afflicted with sickle cell anemia. She says the participating children in the program initially have very little knowledge concerning their own diseases.
“Some didn’t even realize that sickle cell anemia isn’t simply having ‘wrong blood,’ but is much more complex and has nothing to do with their bodies being ‘wrong,’” Edwards says. “Oftentimes, at the doctor, a nurse will stay with a patient for a short period and only offer unspecific curative advice.”
The volunteers try to pick up from where the doctors and nurses leave off, educating program participants on the workings of their bodies and how they can get better.
The sixth branch of Project Health takes a more preventative stance toward healthcare. It is called Family Help Desk, and the program directs clients to external clinics or programs that can help them with their specific needs. Alex Woodward, BC ’10, who works for the Family Help Desk, describes it as a “compass towards other organizations or programs that can cater to each person’s individual necessities.”
Woodward and Edwards both expressed that perhaps one of the most detrimental influences of coming from an underprivileged background is that it instills in people an attitude of hopelessness.
Currently, Project Health is in a particularly formative time. It has decided to downsize, closing some of its programs in order to focus more on the increased participation.
“There are a lot of factors that influence whether or not a child can attend a program,” Woodward says. “Their family situation and life at home have great authority over their being able to truly take advantage of the Project Health programs.”
Project Health’s downsizing aims to redirect resources to preventative treatment. This will address quality of life issues that may improve attendance and interaction in the youth programs, helping participants gain access to and take advantage of other healthcare options.
The founders of Project Health want to get to root of those problems and establish a stable infrastructure for each of their clients. Therefore, they are focusing on preventative treatment, such as Family Help Desk, so that the patients have the security in their lives to regularly attend a program.
The direct result of this change at Columbia is that three of the youth programs will be cancelled after this spring semester. The three that will remain are those focusing on sickle cell anemia, Type 1 diabetes, and the Family Help Desk. Though this may seem like a considerable setback the volunteers at Project Health remain positive.
Woodward says of the changes: “This summer there’s going to be a lot of figuring things out and attacking the way we go about things. This past semester Family Help Desk had 68 cases alone and many referrals from doctors. We’re actually at the point now when we have so many cases that we can barely field them all. So although some of the programs are closing we’re still passionate and want to make it work. The general theme of Project Health isn’t changing.” \\\