MIKE Program mentor Michelle Thomassian will take a new spin on Spring Break. With a week off from mentoring at Miller Education Center-West (MEC-W) in Hillsboro, Michelle will be filming as one of the contestants for Portland Week on the “Wheel of Fortune.” Michelle landed the slot on the syndicated game show last year when the Wheelmobile visited Portland in September.

As a graduate of the University of Oregon with a degree in Journalism and Electronic Media, Michelle will get an added bonus of seeing firsthand how the show is filmed during her stint. Michelle said she landed the spot on a lark, though had to endure hours of testing and competitions to win a slot on the show, which is slated to be broadcast in May.

Michelle will return to her mentoring duties next week to continue one of her favorite activities outside her job as a sales operations specialist for a computer hardware company. “I value knowledge and education more than anything in life and believe that every student deserves the opportunity to receive a good education,” says Michelle.

She joined MIKE Program in January to mentor teens in an afterschool program at MEC-W. Michelle brings experience teaching English to youth in Arusha, Tanzania, as well as tutoring refugees in English with the Immigrant and Refugee Community Organization (IRCO) in Portland. Michelle looks to instill a support system where youth can rely on trustworthy information with MIKE Program.

MIKE Program is changing the way young people value nutrition in their lives. Susan Li of Pacific University told a filled room at MIKE Program’s annual “Our Community Gathering” event on March 11 that her findings point to clear evidence that young people gain skills and confidence to make healthy choices after participating in the program.

Li, who directs the Child and Adolescent Track of the Graduate School of Professional Psychology at Pacific University, is analyzing the impact MIKE Program has on youth and their health. She and her students quantify results based on MIKE Program’s surveys to determine what works in changing behaviors.

The project utilizes youth surveys to measure improvement based on participation in MIKE Program. Li’s project focuses on health self-efficacy, personal goals and knowledge. According to Li, the results show significant improvement in the students’ ability to eat a better well-balanced diet, tell which foods were healthy and decide which foods were good after completing MIKE Program.

MIKE Program began partnering with Li and her students last spring. Li says the partnership is focused on getting the word out about its impact. The efforts will monitor MIKE Program’s effectiveness, track how the curriculum impacts youth, measure changes in health behaviors and promote evidence of the curriculum’s effectiveness.

“We’ve found that MIKE Program is really meeting targets for knowledge change,” said Li. She listed kidney anatomy, risk factors, nutrition and exercise as important lessons the youth are learning. “They’re changing in the area of nutrition self-efficacy and that’s probably because MIKE Program is so service learning, hands-on and empowering in terms of ‘let’s go there, let’s figure this out, let’s look at labels and let’s try this out.’ So, they’re really feeling like they can do that piece.”

Li’s work and that of one of her doctoral students, Nichole Sage, has been accepted for peer-reviewed poster presentations at several regional conferences. Sage presented the first in a series of posters at the Oregon Public Health Association Conference last October. She will present another poster at the Western Psychological Association Annual Convention in San Francisco, Calif., in April, while Li will present a poster at the Rocky Mountain Psychological Association Annual Convention in Reno, Nev. Laura Pagenstecher, another student of Li’s, also helps with the data crunching for the findings.

Funding from two Oregon foundations, Collins Medical Trust and the Juan Young Trust, helps support the partnership. The Collins Medical Trust directly funds the partnership with Pacific University to evaluate and further develop MIKE Program projects and activities. Juan Young Trust’s funding also supports the partnership, in addition to helping MIKE Program expand its reach at the Miller Education Center-West in Hillsboro.

Li says she’s finding that MIKE Program is impacting more than the youth. “I’m actually supervising one of the mentor’s working at the Miller Education Center site,” said Li. “Her health behaviors are changing also.” The mentor is thinking about her own health choices as she shops for healthy snacks for the youth. “The mentor thinks before grabbing a bag a potato chips, now. “We’re talking about busy people,” said Li. “These are students who also don’t have a lot of income, have busy schedules, are stressed out and have a lot of things going on in their lives.”

John Westover of DaVita spoke before a packed room to accept the 2012 Community Partner Recognition as part of MIKE Program’s “Our Community Gathering” on March 11. Westover, who serves as DaVita’s Regional Operations Director for Region 3, highlighted DaVita’s partnership with MIKE Program.

“I feel really special to be a part of MIKE Program, especially since MIKE Program is geared to something near and dear to our hearts,” he said. Besides being a sponsor for “An Autumn Evening: A Benefit Dinner and Auction for MIKE Program,” DaVita donated $4000 at the end of 2011 to help expand operational capacity.

DaVita is one of the local dialysis providers which welcomes MIKE Program youth on field trips to provide face-to-face talks with individuals undergoing dialysis. “What I liked best about the dialysis clinic tour was being able to ask questions to an actual person who had kidney disease,” Maria of De La Salle North Catholic High School wrote after her visit last month.

In 2009, MIKE Program coordinated a mural project at DaVita’s recently acquired NE Hancock clinic in Portland. The 100-foot mural depicts healthy lifestyles expressed through the ideas of youth in MIKE Program. The project was led by mural artist Robin Corbo.

Westover shared DaVita’s goals with an audience which included Stacy Kaczor-Roach who has served on MIKE Program’s Board of Directors for more than three years, “We think we can do special things.” He explained why DaVita refers to itself as a village, rather than a company, where community is important. Westover compared MIKE Program’s vision to DaVita. “It’s partnerships with organizations like MIKE Program that make us live and breathe,” he said. “Being a part of MIKE Program here in Portland is important.”

Westover thanked MIKE Program for the recognition and expressed his desire to continue partnering through shared goals. “That’s what programs like MIKE Program are all about, helping people make healthy life decisions.”

DaVita, headquartered in Denver, Colo., operates 1,809 facilities throughout the U.S. Westover’s region includes the Portland metro area from Long Beach, Wash., to McMinnville, Ore. DaVita has 12 dialysis centers in the Portland area.

Legacy Good Samaritan Kidney Transplant Doctor Hosts MIKE Program Talk

William Bennett, MD, a leading authority on kidney transplantation, hosted a talk on the current state of transplantation in Oregon for MIKE Program in February. Bennett, who is the director of Legacy Good Samaritan, Solid Organ and Cellular Transplantation, also directs renal research at Legacy. Bennett offered to host the talk for MIKE Program supporters in response to the annual Autumn Evening Benefit Dinner and Auction for MIKE Program paddle donations last October.

Bennett detailed the effects of diabetes and hypertension on the population in Oregon during the last several decades. He said that about 1200 people in Oregon face chronic kidney disease (CKD) each year. “This is chronic kidney disease,” he said. “This is severe enough to require dialysis or transplantation.” Bennett added, “there is a whole host of people with chronic kidney disease that isn’t yet severe enough to require dialysis or transplantation.

CKD affects 20-30 million Americans. While about 600,000 are currently on dialysis, 500,000 have undergone kidney transplants. The numbers for both are increasing. Bennett said that transplantation is a better option for most people, but financial limitations and a lack of sufficient donors in the regions where patients reside continue to have a profound effect on the lives of those with CKD. In some regions, like California, approved recipients can wait up to 10 years for a matching kidney.

Sifting through the funding requirements of Medicare and private insurance often leads many individuals to opt for dialysis, even though the overall cost is much greater than having a transplant. Bennett pointed to the changes in Medicare guidelines in 1972 that continue to affect how people are treated for CKD.

Bennett warned that without effective treatment and lifestyle changes, CKD numbers will continue to increase. Diabetes is the greatest contributor to CKD. “This has totally changed from 30 to 40 years ago,” said Bennett. He said that when he first began to work in the field, chronic nephritis, then hypertension and polysystic kidney disease (an inherited disease) topped the list of factors contributing most to CKD. Today, diabetes accounts for some 40 percent of CKD cases. Hypertension, otherwise known as high blood pressure, accounts for 30 percent.

Those two factors alone contribute to 70 percent of today’s current CKD. And, it is that 70 percent which is preventable. MIKE Program was founded to help guide the next generation toward healthier lifestyles that would help counter those numbers.

MIKE Program was founded as a legacy of the work of Michael Hartnett, MD. Harnett was the first nephrology fellow at the now Oregon Health and Science University (OHSU) to receive training from Bennett as a board-certified nephrologist. Bennett completed his fellowship in nephrology at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. He also holds certifications in internal medicine, clinical pharmacology and is considered a specialist in clinical hypertension.

Although Bennett retired from OHSU, where he served as chief resident in internal medicine, he maintains an active schedule as a clinician, researcher and educator. He is the current Editor-in-Chief Emeritus at the Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology and continues to be ranked as a top physician by Portland’s Top Doctors, America’s Top Doctors and Best Doctors in America.

Bennett joined MIKE Program’s Advisory Board in its inception and continues to support its work to empower youth toward healthy lifestyles. “What you (MIKE Program) do is probably more important that what I do, because if the next generation can avoid having the services of someone like me, that would be a step forward for society,” Bennett said during the talk. “So what MIKE Program is doing, I think, is a good thing, because if you avoid having these issues, then I’ll be out of work and that would be great.”

For more information about Legacy Good Samaritan Transplant Services, go to: Legacy Good Samaritan Transplant link: http://www.legacyhealth.org/transplant. To download his presentation slides, click here.

William Bennett, MD, gives an overview of the kidney at a recent talk for MIKE Program.

MIKE Program joined hundreds of community members to celebrate at The Skanner’s 26th Annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day Breakfast in January. Bernie Foster, president of The Skanner News Group who serves on MIKE Program’s Advisory Board, compelled those in attendance to voice their concerns about their community. “What you have to say is important and you deserve to be heard,” he told the audience.

Foster focused on job creation as one vehicle to lift local communities out of the ongoing economic challenges which have affected people of color the hardest. Foster enlisted the help of government representatives in the room to further the vision of Dr. Martin Luther King, JR., including Senator Jeff Merkley. “You are the ones who must make equity happen.”

Sen. Merkley answered Foster’s call, telling the audience, “we know that without education, we will not march forward effectively.”

Two MIKE Program youth from De La Salle North Catholic High School listened intently as Foster and other speakers focused on education, job creation and equity as goals to improve local communities. Keynote speaker Mike Green inspired the audience to build a better economy for all people by building relationships. His message reinforced the importance of education for young people of color. His comments highlighted what works to create positive change. MIKE Program has been implementing such methods to change the lives of young people.

Evelyn, one of the MIKE Program youth in attendance, holds education high on her list of goals. She wrote that she wanted to learn about importance of keeping her kidneys healthy, graduating to go far life and becoming more involved as ways to make a difference in her life when she began MIKE Program last fall. Since then, she and her classmates are building relationships with MIKE Program mentors who help reinforce those goals each week at De La Salle North Catholic High School. The mentors guide Evelyn and her classmates through a comprehensive curriculum to develop leadership skills to live healthier lives and become leaders of their generation.

The annual breakfast featured a presentation of scholarship winners that included four De La Salle North Catholic High School recipients. Kevin Jones, Christine Trinh, Lorena Santiago-Hernandez and Shaniece Curry received recognition for their academic work at the event.

Foster closed the event with the words of Rob Ingram who mentors youth in Portland, “Let’s get to work.” Ingram will host a Youth Summit Against Violence on Saturday, April 21 from 10:00am to 4:00pm at the Highland Christian Church. All youth under the age of 21 are encouraged to attend.

For more information about the Youth Summit, visit The Skanner at: www.theskanner.com.

A young man in MIKE Program’s Rosemary Anderson High School program asked point blank, “why do doctors always have to use words that nobody understands?” It’s a question for a growing segment of the population. Nearly 50 percent of Americans are considered to have low health literacy. To help improve the public’s understanding, Legacy Health Systems will host a conference this spring to help counter the growing trend.

Low health literacy means patients are less likely to understand treatment options because they cannot comprehend medical information or their doctor’s instructions. The issue is especially critical in populations over 65 and in communities of color, leading to increased health disparities. Other consequences include lower health outcomes, increased use of emergency room services, and increased severity of diseases like diabetes and high blood pressure which lead to kidney failure.

Legacy hopes to raise awareness of the issue with the “Making it Clear” conference to mitigate the consequences of low health literacy. Conference speakers include Christina Cordero of The Joint Commission, Cliff Coleman of OHSU, Alison Arevalo-Amador of Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, and Dr. George Brown, President of Legacy Health.

The conference will highlight recent findings and best practices for health professionals, as well as offer ways to clarify communication between patients and health care providers. According to Rima Rudd of the Harvard School of Public Health, one of the founders of the field of health literacy, there are huge health disparities between individuals with low health literacy and those with strong health literacy skills. The National Patient Safety Council cites low health literacy as the single greatest impact on health status.

The Healthy People 2020, a federal campaign to improve health outcomes in the U.S., includes the issue in its plan to improve the health of Americans. MIKE Program was recently awarded a Healthy People 2020 Community Innovation Grant to introduce and reinforce healthy behaviors to low-income youth in an afterschool program at Miller Education Center-West in Hillsboro beginning this month. MIKE Program connects the youth with caring adults to build knowledge and skills to promote healthy lifestyles and healthy kidneys. MIKE Program’s curriculum offers youth an interactive way to understand health and consider career opportunities in the health care industry.

MIKE Program’s youth become empowered to advocate for healthy lifestyles within their own communities to increase their health literacy and outcomes. When they learn the language of health, they are able to communicate it to a broader audience in language they understand and can explain.

The focus of language is making its way to the forefront of several national policy initiatives, including the Affordable Care Act of 2010, the Plain Writing Act of 2010, and the Department of Health and Human Services National Act Plan.

Jessica Ridpath of the Group Health Research Institute, one of the speakers at the Legacy conference, will address the use of plain language in advancing health literacy. The Oregon and SW Washington Health Literacy Conference “Making it Clear” will be held on March 9 at the Multnomah Athletic Club in Portland. For more information, visit: http://www.legacyhealth.org/healthliteracyconference.

Eating Healthy Begins with Small Bites

When MIKE Program’s Dr. Cheryl Neal and Adrienne Daniels arrived at David Mickola’s classroom, the De La Salle North Catholic High School youth were absorbed in a conversation about teasing a fellow classmate for eating a healthy lunch. The youth were engaged in an exercise to highlight how teens respond to lunchroom situations. The majority laughed that they were eating pizza while their classmate was chewing on carrots.

Now in their seventh week, the mostly 14-year-olds still have much to learn as healthy eating extends beyond a classroom lesson. They are beginning to use individual health planners developed and provided by MIKE Program to guide them toward healthier choices. For MIKE Program, it’s a strategy for genuine change in behavior.

Dr. Neal and Daniels listened as Mickola took his students through the process of discussing the implications of the scenario and what effect it had on the boy and themselves. After the discussion, the youth not only were more aware of how their actions, but were also more open to understanding how foods affect their health.

Youth today are more likely to value pizza and junk food over vegetables and fruits. MIKE Program carefully realigns those values to empower youth to understand the importance of their choices for their health now and in the future.

MIKE Program incorporates sensible, easy to access foods and actions to help build far greater success toward reaching that goal. To instill healthy habits, MIKE Program mentors bring healthy snacks to class each week. They focus on fruits, vegetables and whole grains in healthy combinations as staples for the youth snacks. The process of bringing healthy snacks is also a learning process for the mentors. Catherine Stensby, who mentors two groups each week, commented that she was surprised by the price of grapes in the off-season, so she’s found other healthy foods that fit within her budget.

Greg Kluthe, who mentors with Stensby on Thursdays, said he’s watched the youth progress from ignoring the snacks during the first weeks, to now arriving at class looking for the snacks and water. The process helps youth adapt to the healthy choices through sharing a normal routine with their peers. It also builds consistency into their diet which may not be available at home.

The process is important to countering obesity. According to the Portland Plan, one in four youth are overweight in the Portland area, adding to the increase rates of diabetes at younger ages. Diabetes is one of the leading causes of kidney failure in the U.S. Losing weight and eating healthy can prevent the onset of Type 2 Diabetes.

A Gallop poll released this week, asked about ways Americans have lost weight successfully. Those polled sited dietary changes and exercise as most reliable. The recently released draft of The Portland Plan counted one in every four youth in the region as overweight or obese. Such data point to one of the fundamental reasons for MIKE Program. Equipping teenagers with knowledge, skills and values to make healthier decisions prepares the youth to advocate for themselves, peers and families and avoid joining the rising segment of the population experiencing chronic non-communicable diseases.

MIKE Program thanks Mary Anne Harmer and Emily Boscacci for their invaluable service to our mission and community as they cycle off the Board of Directors.

Harmer was appointed to serve on the U.S. Health and Human Services Health Equity Council for Region 10, and the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association Executive Council for Health Disparities. She served as chair of MIKE Program’s Marketing Committee and co-chaired our 2011 Autumn Evening Benefit and Dinner. Harmer is the Corporate Director of Account Management Strategy and Planning at Regence Blue Cross Blue Shield.  Joining the MIKE Program Board in December 2010, Mary Anne will remain on the Advisory Board.

Boscacci, joining MIKE Program’s Board in June, 2009, served as a MIKE Program health mentor at Portland Opportunities Industrialization Center in 2008-09.  She also co-chaired the Autumn Evening 2011 event. Boscacci, a Wellness Coordinator with The Regence Group, is an avid basketball player and fan and she will put her college playing skills and talents to use coaching at Westview. Boscacci is set to complete her Master’s in Public Health at PSU in March, 2012. She also volunteers with the Big Brother Big Sister organization. Her “little sister” participated in MIKE Program at De La Salle North Catholic High School last year.

Board of Directors Welcomes Melissa Preston

MIKE Program welcomes Melissa Preston to the Board of Directors. Preston discovered MIKE Program through Board Vice-President Kathrine Gilstrap, a former colleague at what was Citi Financial, now OneMain Finacial.
Preston, now an independent agent of United Healthcare educating seniors on their health care options, brings a background of finance, team building and sports to the governing body. Preston was the captain of the women’s soccer team at Hardin-Simmons University, where she graduated with a degree in Business Administration.  She understands the importance of physical activity in the lives of youth and how leadership skills are important to building healthy outcomes. Preston also serves with the Vose Neighborhood Association.

Measuring four feet in length, MIKE Program’s BIG WOODEN KIDNEY catches a lot of attention. It’s a colorful depiction of a human kidney that has become a signature part of MIKE Program’s curriculum and community outreach. Its impact is most effective because it was created by youth for youth.

In MIKE Program’s first partnership with Benson High School in 2002-2003, students in the Health Occupations Program, looked for a visual way to tell the story of their kidneys. They created the BIG WOODEN KIDNEY to share their knowledge in an interactive demonstration at a local middle school.

The efforts of the students at Benson High School continue to provide a robust teaching tool that has a greater impact on the students than many conventional methods. This week at De La Salle North Catholic High School, 95 youth in four freshman health classes learned about their kidneys from BIG WOODEN KIDNEY. It has found a home in our curriculum where we manipulate it to demonstrate common-sense logic about our how our bodies are organized: bladder to store the urine below the kidney which produces it, the relationship of the blood supply of the kidney to the general circulation, etc.

While the students at Benson High School created BIG WOODEN KIDNEY, another youth group at the now closed Youth Opportunity Center (YO!) youth agency held a “Kidney Karnival” to show how their kidneys function. In a clever twist, the students filled two-liter-sized plastic soda bottles with water to demonstrate the amount of filtering kidneys do in one day. They filled a couple, then more and more and more—until they filled 120 bottles. The immediate impact of discovering that kidneys process the amount of blood that filled those 120 two-liter-sized bottles is not soon forgotten. In addition to the amount of liquids, the bottles also serve a nutrition function. They help remind youth that water is key to good health, whereas soda and other sugary beverages contribute to obesity and other health-related issues.

Another visual involves lots (and lots and lots) of counting. The youth at YO! filled glass canning jars with varying amounts of kidney beans (counting each one meticulously). The jars are used to demonstrate kidney anatomy and invite student teamwork to guess the amounts of beans in the jars through extrapolation.

The bottles and beans are part of a process that conveys numbers in visual and hands-on expressions that youth more easily comprehend and retain. This shared-learning process includes peer-to-peer learning that is guided by mentor-to-youth support for a foundation that truly is life-long.