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March 27, 2019Doctors and Patients Team Up with 19 Local Schools for V-Healthy Day
Imagine the impact of empowering high schools students to become the Sherlock Holmes in their communities and diagnose the risks of developing one of the fastest growing health care crisis that Americans face today; Peripheral Arterial Disease. V-Healthy® is a vascular disease education, awareness & prevention campaign that empowers young high school students to understand the implications of environmental and genetic risks they are exposed to today on their vascular health decades later.
The V-Healthy® initiative is led by the Center for Vascular Awareness, a nonprofit organization, and has already impacted nearly 10,000 students in the Capital Region. On March 27, 2019, over 200 medical professionals, teachers, and patients with vascular disease will team up with over 5000 students from 19 Capital Region high schools to highlight the impact of vascular risk factors (hypertension, diabetes, obesity, hyperlipidemia, smoking, and genetics) on their vascular and heart health in years ahead.
The V-Healthy® program consists of a 40-minute curriculum utilizes didactics, hands-on workshops, and patient stories to focus on vascular risk factor awareness, innovation, and prevention. In weeks following the V-Healthy® Day, hundreds of students will participate in a Diagnosing Hypertension project and monitor daily blood pressures in their parents for one week. Over 700 students have already participated in this study and discovered undiagnosed Hypertension in over 50% of their parents, nearly half of which had Stage 2 Hypertension with alarmingly elevated blood pressures of ≥160/≥100 mmHg.
The V-Healthy® program has been recognized by the Society for Vascular Surgery Foundation as a key vascular disease education, awareness, and prevention initiative. The Eastern Vascular Society has partnered with the Center for Vascular Awareness in implementing the V-Healthy® program in numerous cities in Northeast United States. In the Capital Region, the V-Healthy® program is supported by numerous organizations and individuals including Community Care Physicians, P.C. (CCP); Vascular Health Partners of CCP; Clifton Park Pediatrics of CCP; Capital Cardiology Associates; Ellis Hospital, Glens Falls Hospital; CDPHP; Mrs. Georgia & Mr. David Gottlieb; and Mrs. Marcia & Mr. Charles Ehrlich.
Participating high schools include:
- Academy of the Holy Names
- Albany High School
- Averill Park High School
- Bethlehem High School
- Cairo- Durham High School
- Cohoes High School
- Colonie High School
- Columbia High School
- Glens Falls Middle School and High School
- Greenville High School
- Hadley- Luzerne High School
- Hudson High School
- Lake George High School
- Mohonasen High School
- Niskayuna High School
- Schalmont High School
- Shenendehowa High School
- Tamarac High School
- Troy High School
Dr. Manish Mehta is President and CEO of Center for Vascular Awareness and a practicing vascular surgeon at Vascular Health Partners of Community Care Physicians, P.C.
To cover the event and for interviews:
If you are interested in covering this event at one or more schools, prior to the event please contact Alexis Musto, Director of Marketing of Community Care Physicians, amusto@communitycare.com or (518) 213-0322. We will need to provide the school of choice with the name of media covering V-Healthy Day. Interviews can be coordinated on site with the lead physicians during the program.
