Healing our Village - the Health Education Professionals

Healing Our Village of MD, Inc (HOV) is an innovative, dynamic health communication corporation, headquartered in Lanham, Maryland with over 26 years of experience in the Healthcare Industry. HOV specializes in targeted advocacy, training, education and outreach for health care professionals and minority communities. HOV possesses a wide variety of experience in market research, professional education (physicians, pharmacists, certified diabetes educators, nursing), advisory/consultant meeting planning, wellness and prevention screening, event planning and production, data collection and reporting, sales force training.

Our Health Crisis

For the past 380 years, minority populations (African Americans and Latinos) have suffered the worst health care, the worst health status and the worst health outcomes of any ethnic or racial groups in the United States. Some of the key indices leading to these problems include poverty, lack of access to health care, low socioeconomic status, discrimination, lack of available community resources, stressful lifestyle, poor nutrition, poor education, inadequate housing, low paying jobs and lack of health insurance compounded by a lack of access to preventative health care services.

There are several chronic disease states that have significant negative impact on ethnic populations. Many of these diseases have modifiable risk factors (i.e. cigarette smoking, excessive body weight, physical inactivity, poor nutrition and high risk sexual behaviors) that can be addressed through innovative education and prevention strategies.

Why do we need education programs for patients with chronic diseases?

Chronic Diseases are very prevalent in the United States with a huge economic impact.

Diabetes is in epidemic proportions worldwide. Approximately 21 million people in the United States have type 1 or type 2 diabetes with another 5.6 million undiagnosed. The average life expectancy for people with diabetes is up to 15 years less than for people without diabetes.
Every 29 seconds, someone in the United States has a heart attack and every minute someone dies of a heart attack. Cardiovascular disease, primarily coronary heart disease and stroke kills more Americans than all other chronic diseases combined.
Asthma ranks among the most common chronic conditions in the United States, affecting an estimated 14.9 million persons in 1995 and causing over 1.5 million emergency department visits, about 500,000 hospitalizations, and over 5,500 deaths.
Depression strikes people of all ages, backgrounds, and ethnic groups. It is estimated that about 20 million adults in the U.S. suffer from depression each year, and that up to 25% of all women and up to 12% of all men in the U.S. will experience an episode of major depression some time in their lives.
Over one million people get cancer each year. Approximately one out of every two American men and one out of every three American women will have some type of cancer at some point during their lifetime. Anyone can get cancer at any age; however, about 77% of all cancers are diagnosed in people age of 55 and older.
The Centers of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that currently 800,000 to 900,000 people in the United States are currently living with AIDS. The fastest growing segment of the population affected by HIV/AIDS is heterosexual women.