Public Health hoping to address hypertension risks of Black residents with PACE program – Dayton Daily News

The program seeks to reduce the number of Black residents who have high blood pressure. High blood pressure can damage arteries by making them less elastic, which decreases the flow of blood and oxygen to the heart and leads to heart disease.

Its designed to prevent hypertension. Hypertension in the African American community is at higher rates across the board in the country, so the program is to help prevent the hypertension before it starts, said Amy McAllister, health education specialist at Public Health.

High blood pressure is more common in non-Hispanic Black adults (56%) than in non-Hispanic white adults (48%), non-Hispanic Asian adults (46%), or Hispanic adults (39%), according to the Centers for Disease Control.

Black Americans face unique social and environmental factors including lack of access to health care and healthy foods and limited places to exercise, contributing to the inability to manage blood pressure, Public Health said.

The PACE program provides education, exercise lessons and nutrition and cooking demonstrations, McAllister said. Public Health partners with Mission: Fit for the exercise classes and Kettering Health on the nutrition classes.

The fitness courses are designed so that anyone, no matter their exercise abilities, can do them, she said. If participants successfully complete the program, they can get a free slow cooker or air fryer, which are used for the recipes they learn.

We try to make the class fun and engaging for the participants as much as possible, said Tif Huber, chronic disease prevention senior manager at Public Health.

The first cohort of classes took place in September and the next cohort kicks off in January.

Since the PACE Program is focused on prevention, anyone who is 18 and older who has been told by a physician that they have high blood pressure is not eligible to participate. Those eligible are Montgomery County residents who do not have high blood pressure.

The PACE program is set up in three stages:

Stages 2 and 3 each have a monetary incentive for completion. For more information or to register, visit phdmc.org/pace-your-way-to-health.

Facts about hypertension in the United States

In 2017, the American College of Cardiology and the American Heart Association published new guidelines for hypertension management and defined high hypertension as a blood pressure at or above 130/80. Stage 2 hypertension is defined as a blood pressure at or above 140/90.

According to the Centers for Disease Control:

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Public Health hoping to address hypertension risks of Black residents with PACE program - Dayton Daily News