August 10,1998
For city youths, a can-do attitude
“This is our attempt to address the whole family and the child.”
-DR. BARRY ZUCKERMAN
Chief of Pediatrics at Boston Medical Center, who oversees Project HEALTH
Darryl Jenkins Sr. leans forward and smiles as he watches his 10-year-old son execute two rapid breaststrokes underwater before bursting up for air.
“He can hold his breath longer,” thanks to swimming, Jenkins said, perched on the bleachers overlooking the Madison Park Community Center pool in Roxbury. “Usually, he would just pop up.”
It was the first time the Mattapan postal worker had come to watch his son since Darryl Jr. joined the Asthma Swimming Program two months ago.
Like the 17 other children in the pool, Darryl Jr. has chronic asthma. But he has been learning from volunteer college students how to better manage the disease, and the benefits of exercise.
The program is part of Project HEALTH, a two-year-old program in which university students, with guidance from Boston Medical Center, design programs to improve the health of inner-city children.
“We provide medical services to children, but that is really inadequate to meet their needs, especially when there are other stressors that can affect their health,” said Dr. Barry Zuckerman, chief of pediatrics at the medical center, who oversees Project HEALTH. “This is our attempt to address the whole family and the child.”
Rebecca Onie was a pre-law student at Harvard University two years ago when she called Zuckerman and proposed starting Project HEALTH. Frustrated that existing community-service programs tended to look at issues through a single lens, whether legal or medical, Onie wanted to start a program for students pursuing a variety of majors to examine children’s health issues.
While Onie started with only 10 fellow recruits from Harvard in 1996, the project this fall will have 130 to 150 student volunteers from Harvard and MIT. And Onie, who is now director of Project HEALTH, noted that discussions have begun to replicate the program on college campuses in other states.
While the Asthma Swimming Program is one of the more established of the programs, others scheduled to start include a fitness and nutrition class for overweight and obese girls, and a tutoring and support program for teenagers with sickle cell anemia.
Ideas for programs come from medical center staff and students. The students work out the logistics – from securing space to soliciting donations. Children are referred by Boston Medical Center pediatricians, and by medical staff at community health centers and other hospitals in the city.
While it is too soon to measure the effectiveness of many of the programs, the Asthma Swimming Program has produced some remarkable results, according to the doctor who proposed it.
Dr. Suzanne Steinbach, a Boston Medical Center pulmonologist who originated the swim program after reading news articles that some 1996 Olympic swim team members had asthma, said the peak flow, a measure of lung capacity, of the 18 children who participated in the program during the past school year increased an average of 26 percent.
“That is phenomenal improvement,” said Steinbach, noting that it is nearly four times better than the performance of some new asthma medications.
There are also reports from parents that children required fewer trips to the emergency room, Steinbach said.
Vivian Showell of Jamaica Plain pointed out that her 10-year-old daughter, Vivian, prefers the Asthma Swim Program to the day camp in Westwood she also attended.
“On days we can’t get here, she gets really upset,” said Showell.
For some parents, the free programs have provided their children with services they otherwise could not afford.
Marie Crawford of Mattapan said a few months ago she began looking into summer camps for overweight girls for her 12-year-old daughter, Tara, who seemed to be becoming increasingly depressed.
But Crawford didn’t have the $3,500 the camps were charging. Then she learned through a Boston Medical Center nutritionist that Project HEALTH would be launching its first fitness and nutrition program for overweight and obese girls this summer.
Crawford said both she and her daughter have undergone some notable changes in the four weeks that her daughter has been in the program. Her daughter seems happier and more self-confident, she said, and she has been trying to be less protective of her daughter.
“I’m learning, too – to let her go,” said Crawford.
Besides its benefits to the children, Zuckerman said he views the project as a way of cultivating the next generation of potential business, medical, and political leaders to be advocates for poor children and their families.
“They will have a real feeling in their gut of what families need,” he said. “It’s something I hope will serve them through their careers.”