Health fair informs many

"Protect your life ... safe sex," said Marcum Jones, a junior-year civil engineering student, as he picked up a packet of condom samples.

Jones, with Valerie Flanagan, an education graduate student, were examining condoms at the Brothers Network booth in the Cesar Chavez Student Center for the African American Health Fair.

"I just walked into this," Jones said, speaking of last week's fair.

The annual African American Health Fair was a meeting of nonprofit organizations to provide students, of all nationalities and races, but with a focus on students of color, with health information, according to Kamal Harb, fair coordinator and SF State health educator.

"It's a commitment on the campus level and community level to help students of color appreciate their health, take better care of themselves and the ones they love," said Albert Angelo, an SF State health educator. "The fair is a positive experience and lets students know that the Student Health Service is here."

According to Angelo, what makes this fair so unique is that it shows a commitment to diversity on the campus.

"Our health fairs are not just male and female, they're related to people's cultures," he said.

As an example of this commitment to diversity, a mammography program for Latino students and their relatives will be held in May, and in November there will be a gay, lesbian and bisexual health fair.

The fair was not only an example of the center's appeal to the diverse students on campus, but according to Kina Sanford, a sophomore studying cellular microbiology, the fair was a good way for all students to discover the services offered at the health center, such as free body fat, glaucoma and blood-pressure screening.

"Intervention and prevention are key," said Jane Gainer, from the Cancer Support Community, who also had a booth at the fair. Radical mastectomies are performed on women 20 and 21 years old, said Gainer, an SF State public health graduate student.

"Males get breast cancer, too," she said, and according to the CSC, San Francisco and the rest of Northern California are reported to have the highest rate of breast cancer in the United States.

The resurgence of marijuana smoking prompted Gainer to inform students that one marijuana cigarette is equal to five tobacco cigarettes. In light of the recent facts, she was excited that SF State students were concerned with cancer prevention.

The game of Jeopardy! was also available for students to play in order to gain knowledge on cancer and other diseases through the fair's Jeopardy! game. Sickle-cell anemia, sexually transmitted diseases and diabetes were among the categories. According to the game host, Ernestine Guice of SF State's health center, Jeopardy! was really helpful as a learning process.

"I always thought that you could get diabetes from eating a lot of sugar," said Renetta Ledet, a junior studying psychology who was playing Jeopardy!

"A lot of people playing the game have sickle-cell anemia or diabetic relatives and think they're knowledgeable, but they're surprised at some of the answers," Guice said.

Students playing the game could learn that while sickle-cell anemia affects more African Americans (one out of 10 have the trait), the genetic disease also affects individuals whose ancestors are from Central and South America, India, the Middle East, Italy, Greece, Spain, the Philippines and Native America.

Since 1990, all babies are tested for sickle-cell anemia, said Diana Lee, SF State graduate and program coordinator of the Comprehensive Sickle-Cell Center at Children's Hospital in Oakland.

"Consequently, for children under five years old, the disease has dropped by 75 percent," she said.

The number of tuberculosis cases is also decreasing due to investigative research, according to Sheila Davis-Jackson, from the Department of Public Health.

The most common question students asked at the TB booth was, "How do you get TB?" Candy Box, an SF State graduate, explained people catch tuberculosis through the air, by being in continual exposure with someone who is affected.

"Where can you get tested for HIV?" and "How does Reality (the female condom) work, how does it feel?" were the two most common questions asked at the Women's HIV Prevention Project booth, said Marquita Reyes, an SF State graduate and outreach health educator Reality condoms are made of polyurethane instead of latex and, according to some women, create a pleasant sensation. Informational brochures on Reality, HIV testing, rape and other major health issues were available to students at the fair.

"The fair is something we need," said Myrtle Williams, a 67-year-old student studying sociology. Upon hearing the results of her blood-pressure screening, a healthy 120 over 85, Williams said, "Most of the time we don't take precautions for our health."

[ Golden Gater Online February 29, 1996 ]

[ Top of document ]