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Kellogg Foundation grant awarded to Atlanta Regional Health Forum 

Atlanta, GA (March 26, 2008) --- The Atlanta Regional Health Forum (ARHF) has been awarded a $177,800 grant from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation to promote infant and maternal health. Much of the funding will be used to organize community discussions surrounding the “Unnatural Causes” series.

             The series will air on four successive Thursdays, beginning March 27 on Georgia public television. The opening 56-minute episode, “In Sickness and In Wealth,” presents the series’ overarching themes. Each supporting half-hour episode, set in a different ethnic/racial community, provides a deeper exploration of how social conditions affect population health and how some communities are extending their lives by improving them.

The April 3 segment features Fleda Mask Jackson, Ph.D., senior scientist for ARHF and principal investigator for the seminal work on racial and gendered stress and adverse birth outcomes for African-Americans. The episode, filmed in Atlanta, is called "When the Bough Breaks" and looks in-depth at the health impacts of stresses unique to the African-American population. The episode utilizes Jackson’s research to look at rates of premature birth and low birth weight as they correlate to the stresses experienced by African-American females.

            “Making the connection between the stressors of race and gender, and physical responses contributing to prematurity and low birth weight is an important step for advancing interventions at multiple levels,” said Fleda Mask Jackson, Ph.D. “Future iterations of this work will hopefully inform policy and practice pertaining to the health of African-American communities.

            Following the premier, ARHF will be organizing multiple community forums where the public can view the episodes and engage in active discussions about these important health issues.

            “It is our hope that we can bring some level of awareness on how the stresses inherently involved in the African-American experience have a direct impact on community health,” said William Alexander, M.D., chair of the Atlanta Regional Health Forum board of directors. “We see a growing amount of evidence that racism and gendered experiences correlate directly to specific health indicators.”

The complete schedule of showings for the series:

March 27 - "In Sickness and in Wealth"
April 3 - "When the Bough Breaks" and "Becoming American"
April 10 - "Bad Sugar" and "Place Matters"
April 17 - "Collateral Damage" and  "Not Just a Paycheck"

You can see more details at http://unnaturalcauses.org/

About Atlanta Regional Health Forum:

ARHF is a nonpartisan coalition operating as a 501 (c) (3) nonprofit corporation dedicated to creating healthy local communities which ensure the highest health potential for each person within the ten core county region of metropolitan Atlanta. The mission of the Atlanta Regional Health Forum is to transform the health of the Atlanta region by encouraging, enabling, and empowering communities and individuals to achieve their fullest health potential. For more information on the Atlanta Regional Health Forum please visit our website at www.arhf.net.

About the W.K. Kellogg Foundation:

The W.K. Kellogg Foundation was established in 1930. The organization supports children, families and communities as they strengthen and create conditions that propel vulnerable children to achieve success as individuals and as contributors to the larger community and society. Grants are concentrated in the United States, Latin America and the Caribbean, and the southern African countries of Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, South Africa, Swaziland and Zimbabwe.