SHAC Outreach receives national award for innovative health promotion program
| July 21, 2004 | |
| The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services recently honored SHAC Outreach, the newest program within the UNC Student Health Action Coalition (SHAC), with third place among interdisciplinary entries for the Secretary’s Award for Innovations in Health Promotion.The Secretary’s Award recognizes the nation’s innovative health promotion programs designed by students.
Students from UNC’s schools of public health and social work created SHAC Outreach to address some of the health disparities in Orange County communities. With assistance from students from UNC’s schools of dentistry, medicine, nursing and pharmacy, SHAC Outreach piloted its program in 2003. Program leaders Kristin Schaible and Amy Sommer were awarded the N.C. Schweitzer Fellowship to develop the pilot program. Both received master’s degrees in May, Schaible in public health and Sommer in social work. The pilot program featured a diabetes foot clinic in Hurdle Mills and a youth camp in Chapel Hill’s South Estes neighborhood that focused on nutrition and increasing physical activity. Response for the diabetes foot clinic has been particularly positive, with students helping to train about 12 volunteers thus far, Schaible said. SHAC was founded in 1967 as a partnership between UNC students and community members to address unmet health needs. For further information please contact Emily Smith either by phone at 919-966-8498 or by email at emilysmith@unc.edu |
