FIU’s NeighborhoodHELP to conduct health surveys of families in North Dade

MIAMI – Representatives of FIU’s Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine will begin visiting North Miami-Dade homes this week to conduct health surveys of families.

NeighborhoodHELP™, the program through which FIU medical students will work with medically underserved families, will launch the study on Monday. Survey takers will visit 2,200 homes in Miami Gardens, Opa-Locka, and unincorporated North Miami-Dade. Those are the areas where medical students will eventually be assigned families as part of NeighborhoodHELP.

“We want to determine the health issues and needs in these neighborhoods before our students begin to work with their assigned families,” said Dr. Juan Acuña, director of the College of Medicine’s Division of Research, Data, and Information, which is spearheading the survey. “The participation of these families is crucial. The information we gather will help us with our goal of improving access to health care in the community and will help make NeighborhoodHELP a success.”

The College of Medicine, which welcomed its first 43 medical students in August, has selected the 2,200 households. Letters announcing the survey and asking for participation of the families have been hand-delivered to most of the addresses.

Through NeighborhoodHELP, the community outreach arm of the Green Family Medicine & Society Program, each medical student will be part of a team that will include students from nursing, social work, public health, law and other disciplines. Over a three-year period, each medical student will work with a household. The interdisciplinary cooperation is similar to the model that is taking shape in modern medicine, as doctors collaborate with counterparts, such as social workers, to address a patient’s needs.

Earlier this year, the Green Family Foundation (GFF), a private, non-profit organization that supports social programs dedicated to improving community health and elevating universal socio-economic conditions, announced a $5 million gift – $10 million with state match – to fund the Medicine & Society program.

Media Contact: Madeline Baró at 305-348-2234.

—FIU—

About the FIU Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine:
The College of Medicine was approved in 2006 by the Florida Board of Governors and the Florida Legislature.  In 2008, it received preliminary accreditation by the Liaison Committee for Medical Education of the AAMC and admitted its first class in August 2009. Among the innovative elements of the FIU College of Medicine is a program called NeighborhoodHELP™, which will send medical students along with their counterparts in social work, nursing and public health, into the community. The FIU College of Medicine is expected to have a multi-billion-dollar economic impact on Miami-Dade County, bringing thousands of jobs to the area and eventually contributing millions to the state coffers every year. For more information visit http://medicine.fiu.edu/

About FIU:
Florida International University was founded in 1965 and is Miami’s only public research university. With a student body of more than 38,000, its 17 colleges and schools offer more than 200 bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral programs in fields such as engineering, international relations and law. More than 100,000 FIU alumni live and work in South Florida. FIU has been classified by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching as a “High Research Activity University”. In August 2009, FIU welcomed the inaugural class of the Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine. For more information about FIU, visit http://www.fiu.edu