Denver Church Group to Provide Health Screenings, Education to African-American Parishioners

The Metro Denver Black Church Initiative, hoping to provide African Americans with the "health care they need," will provide health screenings in churches this year as part of the group's new Faith & Health Ministries program, the Denver Post reports. The ministry will screen about 2,500 parishioners for several illnesses -- including glaucoma, hypertension, breast and prostate cancers, diabetes and heart disease -- that "hit African Americans with particular ferocity." According to the Post, black women remain twice as likely as white women to die of breast cancer, and African-American men have the highest rate of prostate cancer in the world and the lowest rate of survival. African Americans also are six to eight times more likely to have glaucoma than whites, the Post reports. In addition to the screenings, during the next year, the ministry will offer health education classes after Sunday services at 18 Denver churches, including the 10 largest African-American churches in the metro area. Larger churches will have health care liaisons, and members of smaller churches will move to larger churches after services for disease screenings and health education courses. "One of the things we have sought to do is meet the needs of all our people, not just spiritually, but physically," Rev. Randolph West of St. Stephens Missionary Baptist Church said, adding, "In church, you have a captive audience once or twice a week. We're trying to make people aware of these health problems." The ministry, which has joined forces with the American Diabetes Association, the American Heart Association, Preserve Sight Colorado, the American Cancer Society and the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation, has received a $96,000 grant from the Rose Community Foundation (Kreck, Denver Post, 7/5).