Health & Science Story Archives - Page 6 of 317 - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

‘Vigilant On The Sidelines’: KCHD Discusses Head Injuries In Youth Sports

After recent youth football deaths nationwide, including that of a Boone County middle schooler last month, the Kanawha-Charleston Health Department hosted a Thursday morning discussion to educate coaches, staff, athletic directors, and youth league leaders on detecting signs of head injuries in youth sports.

“You have to be vigilant on the sidelines, watching frequently,” Dr. Calvin Whaley, a neurosurgeon who has treated deadly youth head injuries, said at the panel. “Our athletes are not going to tell us when they are experiencing signs of a concussion.

Whaley pointed to headache, nausea or vomiting, and balance or coordination problems as leading symptoms of a concussion. If exhibiting symptoms, athletes should be removed from play and assessed. Whaley cautioned that symptoms of more severe, possibly fatal, head injuries that need emergency medical attention include loss of consciousness for over a minute, fluid coming out of the nose or ears, or progressively worsening signs of confusion.

Dr. Jim Kyle, an emergency physician, directed attendees to Friday Night Medical Timeout resources to help those on the sidelines to be prepared in case of an injury.

“This discussion is really to bring to light how important it is to prevent unnecessary concussions and [symptom] recognition so that parents, teachers, coaches, referees, athletic directors, pull kids out of play after they sustain a concussion and get them evaluated before they return to play,” Dr. Steven Eshenaur, KCHD Health Officer and Executive Director of the Kanawha-Charleston health department, said.

The West Virginia Secondary School Activities Commission requires a medical professional to clear athletes returning from a concussion for play. Whaley said clearance should follow updated protocol that takes at least five days off from play.

The panel and following audience discussion also pointed to expanding access to athletic trainers, correcting tackle form to eliminate impacting the heads, and reducing time spent on risky contact drills during practice.

The Health Department partnered with Kanawha County Emergency Ambulance Authority for the event, which was also open to surrounding counties. The next session in the series will be on October 9, geared towards medical professionals. Details will be on The Kanawha County Ambulance Facebook page.

Multiple Organizations Partner To Provide Office Space To West Virginia First Foundation

West Virginia University (WVU) and Ascend West Virginia are lending work space at no cost to the West Virginia First Foundation (WVFF) in Morgantown, Fayetteville, Elkins, Martinsburg and Lewisburg.

Ascend West Virginia was founded in 2021 by Brad D. Smith and his wife, Alys as part of their Outdoor Economic Development Collaborative (OEDC), which aims to utilize the state’s outdoor assets to improve the economy and enhance the quality of life for West Virginians through outdoor recreation.

Brad Smith, of Kenova, is an American businessman, and university administrator serving as President of Marshall University. From 2008 to 2018, he was the chief executive officer of Intuit, an American multinational business software company that specializes in financial software.

He initially returned to his home state in March of 2019 to open a “Prosperity Hub,” in Bluefield, West Virginia, aiming to bring 200 to 500 new jobs to the economically burdened southern coalfields.

Smith was named President of Marshall University in Oct. 2021. That same year, he and his wife founded Ascend West Virginia, a program that provides comprehensive incentives for remote workers to spend time making West Virginia home.

According to Danny Twilley, the Assistant Vice President of Economic, Community and Asset Development at the OEDC, Ascend West Virginia was born from a partnership between the Smith’s philanthropic Wing to Wing Foundation, the West Virginia Department of Tourism and WVU.

Danny Twilley, assistant vice president of economic, community and asset development, WVU Brad and Alys Smith Outdoor Economic Development Collaborative.

“We are blessed to have these locations and spaces that serve our vendors and serve as community gathering spaces throughout the state,” Twilley said.

Twilley said the OEDC is supporting the West Virginia First Foundation with these spaces because the First Foundation’s mission aligns with the work the collaborative is doing.

“We’ll do anything we can to help support the West Virginia First Foundation because it aligns so directly with our university’s land grant mission and with the OEDC and Ascend’s community-driven approach to our work,” Twilley said.

Twilley said by offering these conference and working spaces at no cost, OEDC is helping the WVFF utilize its funds for the state’s opioid recovery.

“This money came at a great cost to our state,” Twilley said. “So we want to make sure that it gets every penny, every dollar gets leveraged to its fullest.”

The Executive Director of the WVFF, Jonathan Board said in a press release that access to these working spaces will help the foundation accomplish its mission.

“I want to thank WVU and the Ascend WV program for their generous contribution of office space,” Board said. “Having these outreach locations will allow the Foundation to be present within communities in every region of the state as we focus on serving the people who most need help.”

Appalachia Health News is a project of West Virginia Public Broadcasting with support from Marshall Health.

Hundreds Gather For Martinsburg Veteran Suicide Prevention Walk

In the United States, former military service members are more likely to die by suicide than their non-veteran peers.

While the number of suicides among veterans decreased in 2020, advocates in West Virginia’s Eastern Panhandle say keeping this momentum going requires new conversations about mental health.

Mark Mann serves as chief of staff for mental health services at the Martinsburg VA Medical Center. Before that, he served in the Vietnam War.

In working with veterans, Mann said he sees firsthand how societal stigma around discussing suicide can make it harder to seek help. For him, a first step toward better supporting veterans is being proactive in discussions about mental health.

“It’s about not being scared to ask the question when you see somebody struggling,” he said. “We know from the research and the literature and even folks that have survived very serious suicide attempts that if somebody had stopped and asked and took the time that it could have interrupted that.”

Raising awareness and understanding around suicide in the veteran community is what brings more than 600 people to the hospital campus every September.

On Wednesday, the facility hosted its eighth annual suicide prevention walk. The event began as an effort to honor those veterans who have died from suicide and raise awareness about the issue.

Each year, community members walk a loop around the facility to show veterans how many people are ready and willing to support their mental health needs. The event also features booths with informational resources and educational pamphlets.

Yul Song, chaplain at the Martinsburg VA Medical Center, passes out merch and informational materials to an attendee at the suicide prevention walk Wednesday.

*Photo Credit: Jack Walker/West Virginia Public Broadcasting*

Jill Finkle, suicide prevention coordinator at the hopsital, organizes the event. She described it as a way to physically embody the network of support available.

“It’s part of that stigma reduction,” she said. “Addressing that and normalizing that we’re together, we’re connected.”

Mann, Finkle and the staff at the hospital also know addressing suicide among local veterans takes more than talk. The annual walk is just one part of the facility’s broader mental health programming, Finkle said.

The hospital also offers outpatient services, on-site therapy, residential mental health treatment and specialty services for individuals with post-traumatic stress disorder, military sexual trauma and substance use disorder.

A recent surge in resources like these can be traced back to 2007, when the position of suicide prevention coordinator was created at every VA medical facility in the United States, Finkle said. Having a staff position dedicated to suicide prevention helped establish a more intentional approach to mental health care.

Expanding mental health resources for veterans in the Eastern Panhandle has also included out-of-facility, community-focused programming, according to Jennifer Kelley, community engagement and partnership coordinator at the hospital.

Not all veterans are willing to visit the hospital in person to access mental health services, Kelley said. But hosting less formal programming out in local towns can help establish networks of support for veterans to lean on. Recently, this has included coffee socials led and attended by veterans.

Individuals “who are volunteering their time, they’re connecting with each other,” she said. “They’re building social support networks with each other, and many of them are veterans.”

This year marks the eighth annual suicide prevention walk hosted by the Martinsburg VA Medical Center.

*Photo Credit: Jack Walker/West Virginia Public Broadcasting*

Addressing suicide among veterans has also meant looking at related mental health challenges that can harm veteran wellbeing, like substance use disorder, according to Brigit Kirwan, substance use disorder pharmacist at the hospital.

Kirwan said staff at the hospital often encourage patients to take small steps toward improving their situation, rather than making sweeping changes. This can be more sustainable and lay the groundwork for healthier habits, a practice known as “harm reduction,” she said.

This entails “small steps to meet patients where they’re at, what they’re comfortable with and reduce any type of harm,” she said. “Medication isn’t the only way.”

In recent years, there has been a national push to make veterans and the public at large aware of the suicide prevention resources available, Mann said. This includes the 2022 creation of a 988 suicide and crisis hotline.

By dialing the hotline, callers can get connected with support and mental health resources.

Mann said he hopes that the growing number of resources like these can strengthen mental health nationwide, especially among veterans.

But he also hopes to see barriers to accessing help reduced even further. It is why he and hundreds of members of the community gather on the grounds of the hospital every September.

“As a community, I think we really have to lean into that if we’re going to stop this,” he said. “Because it’s not just veterans.”

Lawmakers Hear Updates On DHHR Reorganization

The re-organization of the DHHR, as directed by lawmakers in 2023, is going well, with a few hiccups, Department of Health Secretary Sherri Young told a legislative committee on Tuesday.

One of the state’s top health officials updated lawmakers on the Legislative Oversight Commission on Health and Human Resources (LOCHHRA) Tuesday about the complex reorganization of West Virginia’s old Department of Health and Human Resources.

Secretary of the Department of Health Sherri Young presented an update to lawmakers who sit on the committee. The DHHR had long been troubled, but came under fire in recent years for staffing shortages and other problems, allegedly compromising the care provided to children in the foster care system or those living in state hospitals.

Following an investigation and the filing of a class action lawsuit, in 2023, the Legislature decided to divide the agency. House Bill 2006 was signed into law by Gov. Jim Justice on March 6, 2023.

The DHHR was split into three departments by an act of the Legislature in 2023. Those three departments are The Department of Human Services (DoHS), the Department of Health (DH) and the Department of Health Facilities (DHF).

The same legislative act directed the three departments to be overseen by the Office of Shared Administration (OSA) which consists of six offices: the Office of Finance, the Office of Human Resources Management, the Office of Constituent Services, the Office of Communications, the Office of Operations and the Office of Management Information Services.

In December 2023 lawmakers shared concerns about efficiency and fears of overlap in the restructuring process. Secretary of DH, Sherri Young told the committee following that December meeting that they could hold question-and-answer sessions with the heads of each of the six offices.

“We had a great discussion back in December, getting to know the directors of each of these offices…and it was felt at that time that this is where they rightly belonged and that they were able to serve all three departments as they continue to do,” Young said. “We had the office directors there, and sometimes it’s better to hear directly from the directors as to how are things going. It was a great meeting. I would put that up as an option again, if you’re interested in coming to talk to the directors and learning more about how OSA is going from an additional perspective.”

On Tuesday morning, during September interim meetings of the Legislature, Young told lawmakers about the ongoing development of the OSA, noting that officially, OSA has only been seated since July 1, 2024.

“But even with 70 days in, we’ve had a lot of wins and a lot of efficiencies and some heavy lifts in other places,” Young said. “If we had to give a percentage, we’re over 80 percent, but we still are committed to getting that work done.”

Young reported a small decrease in staffing in the OSA.

“We’ve had a net loss of a little bit more than five positions, some of those, they may have been open positions that may not have been renewed,” Young said. “I’ll give an example: in Operations where we had a retirement, we just eliminated that position and then moved his folks into other divisions, and [it] is actually working a little bit more efficiently, even.”

Individual Office Updates

During her December 2023 OSA presentation, Young described each of the six offices and their functions. During Tuesday’s testimony, she provided updates about the development of those offices.

“You’ve met with these directors,” Young said. “They do a fantastic job. They’re committed to making sure that the departments are up and running, and even though it’s been a heavy lift, we have an integrated support system. And with the three departments and the three department secretaries working directly with OSA, that has been a benefit because they also had that institutional knowledge.”

Young told lawmakers that institutional knowledge is vital to the future success of the DoHS, DH and DHF.

“They [OSA Directors] have been there far before the three secretaries came to be for the departments,” Young said. “So they are giving us that historical perspective of learning how to do budgets and learning how to manage HR, how to use communications, both internally and externally. So very important functions that they are doing to keep us going. So having that, as far as building out the departments, having that historical knowledge, has been very, very, very good.”

Young used the Office of Communications as an example of efficient downsizing done in the past year. She said when OSA started, the Office of Communications had five filled positions. Now they have four, but two are dedicated to DoHS, one to DH and one to DHF. According to Young, this new structure helps keep messaging consistent and allows for personal expertise.

“They do forward-facing communications,” Young said. “They do our social media, they do our press releases, they make announcements, but they do a lot of internal reviews as well. So any PowerPoint that goes out to for someone doing information at a conference, or any information that goes out to the public, it is vetted through communications for fact finding. It is vetted through communications to make sure everything is consistent, because we want to make sure that the message going out is consistent and that is appropriate for whoever is receiving that, whether it be press inquiries or anything that it does affect the public.”

Young also told lawmakers the Office of Finance has encountered the most obstacles in the transition because of the nature of their work.

“You’re not taking one big account and creating three separate accounts,” Young said. “You’re creating line items out of several little, little accounts that are directed towards offices. The great thing is, it gives more visibility, but that unwinding piece has taken a lot of time and a lot of effort.”

Young told lawmakers Finance also works to acquire funding from the federal government.

“It’s still a process just to get some of the paperwork changed to make sure we’re in compliance with federal government regulations to receive funds because their work was with DHHR previously,” Young said. “Now, their work is with the Department of Health.”

Young said the Office of Human Resources Management was “impacted” by the shift, because of the department’s work with the federal government.

“Benefits and everything change from one DHHR to again, going into the three different departments,” Young said. “Even how they list the open positions, has been a change. So all of that needed to be changed. The good thing is that those changes have been made. We’re doing good.”

Young also told lawmakers the OSA is continuing to work with the Department of Commerce on rebranding.

“We think that we have a good operational rhythm, and the three secretaries have respect of each other in respect of each other’s departments,” Young said.

Appalachia Health News is a project of West Virginia Public Broadcasting with support from Charleston Area Medical Center and Marshall Health.

HEPC Supports Campus Mental Health With Grants

West Virginia’s public colleges and universities are getting help to address the mental health needs of students.

Sept. 10 is World Suicide Prevention Day and in observance, the Higher Education Policy Commission is distributing more than $70,000 in Campus Mental Health Grants to nine institutions across the state.

The individual grants range from more than $6,000 to $12,000 dollars for campus programs including mental health screenings and substance-free activities to promote community on campus.

Most of the grant recipients are community and technical colleges.

Mountwest Community and Technical College
Mountwest will introduce preventative measures, including skill training, mental health screenings, and reducing access to lethal means, aimed at providing early support for student mental health and mitigating worsening symptoms.

Southern West Virginia Community and Technical College
Southern will implement a comprehensive mental health screening tool across its campuses in five counties, addressing mental health challenges exacerbated by socioeconomic factors. The tool will help identify mental health issues early, promoting academic success and mental health resilience.

Eastern Community and Technical College
The Mindfulness in Motion: Mending Minds Together project will conduct routine mental health screenings and use student feedback to set mindfulness priorities. The initiative will foster a supportive campus environment with activities focused on mental health, addiction recovery, and suicide prevention.

BridgeValley Community and Technical College
The Nourishment for Nursing program will provide nursing students with tools to boost both academic performance and mental wellness, expanding on its success with retention rates. Additionally, a new Paramedic Pause Curriculum will offer mental health resources for paramedic students.

Pierpont Community and Technical College
The Stress Less for Success Wellness Program will address non-academic personal barriers to student success, featuring life skills workshops and mindfulness activities aimed at decreasing student dropout rates.

West Virginia University, Concord University, and West Virginia State University are the only four year institutions receiving grants.

West Virginia State University
The Resilient STATE of Mind program provides innovative, community-led solutions to promote resilience in young adults aged 18-24 to advance mental health and well-being and reduce the risk for negative mental health outcomes. This project will provide bi-weekly educational meetings focused on self-esteem, mindfulness, social skills, and coping mechanisms.

West Virginia University
WVU’s Collegiate Recovery Program will combat student loneliness by expanding substance-free activities that foster peer connections. The grant will support increased capacity for these programs, helping to create a campus culture that reduces stigma and encourages belonging.

Concord University
Concord Connect: Building Belonging will cultivate community and inclusion through mentorship, activities, and support networks, ensuring students feel valued and connected to their university.

West Virginia State University & BridgeValley Community and Technical College
In collaboration, WVSU Counseling and Wellness Services will host a one-day Suicide Prevention Conference in Spring 2025. The event will bring together mental health professionals, educators, and students to discuss innovative suicide prevention strategies and foster collaboration across institutions.

These projects are awarded by the commission’s Health Sciences Division, which, among other initiatives, works to improve student mental health, wellness, and safety.

“Supporting the mental health and well-being of our students is critical to ensuring their academic success and overall development,” Sarah Armstrong Tucker, West Virginia’s chancellor of Higher Education said in a press release. “These grants are an important step in addressing the unique mental health challenges that many of our students face. We are proud to support these innovative programs and to work with our colleges and universities to create safer, more supportive environments for all students.”

A SNAP Program Incentivizing Healthy Eating Has Paused Due To Lack Of Funding

A program that doubles or triples nutrition assistance benefits when consumers use them at local farmers’ markets has been temporarily paused because of a lack of funding. The problem is the program’s popularity.

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) is intended to alleviate hunger and malnutrition among low-income households. In 2019, the program served an average of more than 282,000 West Virginians per month.

SNAP is a fully federally funded program, except for some state administrative costs. But in West Virginia, the average benefit is $1.29 per person per meal. With those meager benefits, it can be difficult for SNAP households to afford fresh, healthy foods like local produce.

Nationally, SNAP incentive programs have emerged in recent years to encourage increased food and vegetable purchases, and for those purchases to be made at local farms and markets.

The West Virginia Food and Farm Coalition created an incentive program called SNAP Stretch in 2018 to increase the buying power of SNAP recipients, increase the consumption of locally grown produce and decrease food insecurity.

When a customer uses their SNAP benefits at a participating market, they receive a one-to-one match in SNAP Stretch dollars that can be used to buy fresh fruits and vegetables; canned, dried, or frozen fruits and vegetables; seeds and plants; or fresh herbs.

Senior shoppers and customers with children get an increased match rate.

Evan Osborne is the executive director of the Capitol Market in Charleston. For now, Capitol Market is able to continue operating SNAP Stretch through a grant from the city.

“It’s not just an added source of revenue for our farmers and producers, but this has real world implications for the families that utilize the program,” Osborne said. “That goes beyond just putting food on the table the way that the program is structured. It’s incentivizing them to spend it on healthier items.”

The West Virginia Food and Farm Coalition reimburses local markets to provide scrip, or market currency like a ticket, token, or receipt, for SNAP and EBT users, according to Spencer Moss, the group’s executive director.

“Most of our sites do thousands of dollars a year in SNAP and snap stretch sales,” Moss said. “So if you think of it this way, these were customers that you just did not have at your market before. And because of the program, you’ve got people coming and spending their SNAP EBT dollars that would otherwise go out the door to a big box grocery, Kroger, Walmart.”

Kimberly Stemple is the owner of LEC Farm and Garden Market in Kingwood, West Virginia. She calls the SNAP Stretch program a “godsend” to her market and community.

“Many of them told us the price of fresh fruits and vegetables in the grocery store, the price of meats, cheeses, just everything that discount was the difference between choosing whether we could add fresh fruits and vegetables to our diet, or if we just had to buy the staples like bread and milk and things like that, so that to them, you know, even that little bit amount that we were able to match because of their limited EBT dollars was, I mean, amazing,” Stemple said.

The program was originally funded by a United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) Food Insecurity Nutrition Incentive award.

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, the West Virginia Food and Farm Coalition saw a 442 percent increase in the use of the SNAP Stretch program, reaching 8,426 families.

The popularity of SNAP Stretch in 2020 caused a brief hiatus in the program, freezing SNAP Stretch benefits for three months due to an exhausted budget.

“In 2020, the program went on pause because we actually didn’t have any federal funding for the program at the time we were between federal grants,” Moss said.

The program was restarted in 2020 with $200,000 in funding from the federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act.

Since then the program has only grown, with the Food and Farm Coalition fundraising and applying for grants to keep pace.

“For six years, [we] sustained the match from the program from philanthropic dollars,” Moss said. “We get those philanthropic dollars in somewhere between $5,000 to like $50,000 chunks. And we’ve put out over a million dollars in the program. So you can imagine how exhausted my team is with trying to fundraise the money, to get the match, to get the program operating.”

On Aug. 12, the coalition announced the program was placed on a temporary pause, affecting 26 markets operating in 21 counties.

“I get emails, Facebook messages, text messages every day from participating sites that are asking, ‘Hey, are we coming back anytime soon? Has that funding come through yet?’ I’ve got customers who are asking every day and we’re letting them know that we’re fundraising like crazy,” Moss said. “We’re talking to political actors like crazy, just trying to do everything we can to bring the program back online.”

Stemple says the pause comes at the worst time for her customers who use SNAP Stretch benefits to purchase bushels of produce to can for the winter.

“Knowing that we were going to have to pause it was so very disheartening,” Stemple said. “We had told customers that that was a possibility. It was always budget-based, so when and if we met our budget, then we would have to pause it. It did not help that it came as possibly the worst time of the season.”

According to a press release, the coalition is seeking additional funding partners and hopes a portion of the state’s 2024 budget surplus can help the program.

“We’re really thankful to the governor’s office, who saw a press release last week about the program being paused, and they called to talk more about what they could do to help out,” Moss said.

The office of Gov. Jim Justice did not respond to a request for comment on this story by the time of publication.

While funding from the state’s surplus would get the program back up and running in the short term, Moss is seeking a more reliable form of funding: a line item in the state’s budget.

“The deal with that is that the federal grant requires a one-to-one match,” Moss said. “So if we’re asking for a million dollars from the USDA for the program, I have to come up with a million dollars in match. The best way for me to do that is to have a state budget line item to make that happen, because that means year on year, I’m going to get $300,000 or $500,000 from the state legislature to make the program operate, and that’s the most sustainable way to keep this program going year on year having pauses in the program.”

Any money from the budget surplus would have to come during a special session of the legislature.

On Monday, Gov. Jim Justice announced he would call lawmakers back to the state capitol on Sept. 30 for a special legislative session on new tax cuts and child care in the state. Budgetary decisions were not listed as a topic of discussion for the session.

Appalachia Health News is a project of West Virginia Public Broadcasting with support from Marshall Health.