News

Making sure pregnant women in Pennsylvania are protected against Zika is a top priority for Pennsylvania officials.

State Department of Health and Department of Environmental Protection officials came together Thursday to assemble 2,500 Zika prevention kits that will be distributed around the commonwealth.

“Zika has been connected to birth defects,” said Dr. Karen Murphy, Department of Health secretary. “There are currently 40 confirmed cases in Pennsylvania, all of which have been acquired outside the state in areas where the disease is rapidly spreading.”

Family First Health is one of the locations where people can find the prevention kit.

Read more at the York Dispatch.

About one in eight HIV-positive Americans don’t realize they have the virus, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Family First Health in York City offered free screenings Monday for National HIV Testing Day in hopes of helping those people.

“It’s been a great event,” said Shannon McElroy, Caring Together program manager with Family First. “We’ve been doing this for four years, walking the streets to hand out fliers and condoms and getting people to come in for free testing.”

Read more about the day from the York Dispatch.

Brian Bubb always knew he wanted to be a fashion designer.

“We would go to church on Sunday, and as long as you had a pad of paper and a pencil, he was happy,” his mother, Arlene Bubb, said. “He was drawing pictures of the ladies with their hats.”

The York Dispatch spoke to Arlene Bubb to help highlight the AIDS Memorial Quilt display in York. Take a look at the story.

Courtney Lewis was on the ground floor of the Family First Health offices in York for the employee cookout when she heard a noise so loud it sounded like a bomb.

It was followed by screaming.

“No sooner did we hear that … so many members of our team ran outside,” said Lewis, director of development for the health care organization.

A vehicle struck several pedestrians on the sidewalk around 11:15 a.m. Friday in the 100 block of George Street, in front of Family First Health’s office.

Read more from the York Daily Record.

Urgent centers are gaining in popularity for a number of reasons, experts say.

For one thing, they offer a place other than a hospital emergency room for patients to be treated when they can’t get in to see their own doctor, either because they can’t get an immediate appointment or because it is after hours.

A shortage of more than 20,000 primary care physicians is expected by 2020, according to the federal Health Resources & Services Administration. That could make it tougher for patients to get in to see a doctor.

The kind of  no-appointment-necessary availability that walk-in clinics offer, appeals to many millennials, who “aren’t necessarily looking for a long-term relationship with a health care provider,” said Jenny Englerth, CEO of First Family Health in York.

But a lack of a long-term relationship with a provider is seen as a problem by many.

Read more from the York Daily Record.

Five of us stood there in the wind at the York City Business and Industrial Park one recent afternoon waiting. Ten minutes, 15, 30 minutes passed as some tried to make small talk. Others just stood or sat quietly on their phones or looking off into the distance.

Just waiting and planning.

And by the time the bus connection arrived a good 40 minutes later, I was just headed home after work, but the other four – they were late for work. They were going to get docked for it, too.

There were no email alerts, no updates coming in on the phones that our bus was running late. The cause: traffic in Manchester Township.

I’ve thought that I’ve had a pretty good idea about what’s going on in York from years as a reporter and editor, now as a marketing and outreach coordinator for Family First Health, and as a person who’s just often found downtown. But in the two months I’ve been riding the bus, I’ve come to see there’s a huge section of this town that we don’t notice – maybe because we’re looking ahead as we drive by and not at those just stuck waiting at each bus stop along the way.

Read more from the York Daily Record/Sunday News.

Vision problems left untreated can affect a child’s overall health and learning, and Family First Health is working to make sure kids get the treatment they need — for free.

Jenny Englerth, CEO of Family First Health, said the organization is a member of the Association of Clinicians for the Underserved, which put out a call asking what communities could use the service, and so Family First Health jumped on it.

“We have consistently, within our interactions with York City schools, heard a challenge around both vision screenings and then exams and getting corrective lenses,” she said.

Read more at the York Daily Record/Sunday News.

For kids in the York County area, keeping their eye on the prize of an education is key. But sometimes that can be difficult when your vision is blurry.

Family First Health and Envolve Benefit Options have teamed up with the Association of Clinicians for the Underserved to bring the Vision Van to York City and Delta this week.

“There are a lot of kids unable to afford glasses,” said Courtney Lewis, director of development and community engagement at Family First. “We have to be thinking how it affects kids’ performances when they can’t see correctly in class.”

The Vision Van is rolling into York Friday at Hannah Penn Middle School, 415 E. Boundary Ave. Children up to age 18 in York City can get their vision checked for free from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. with parental permission.

Read more from the York Dispatch.

Since our youth, we’ve been indoctrinated to eat our vegetables with dinner. Parents shared persuasive arguments about carrots aiding our eyesight and spinach making us strong, but many kids still hid Brussels sprouts in their napkins to dump elsewhere later.

It seems we haven’t changed much as adults: The Healthy York County Coalition and Healthy Adams County released a summary report of the community health needs for 2015 that found only 4 percent of York and Adams county residents consume the daily recommendation of fruits and vegetables.

That’s why Family First Health is focused in April on our “Eat Your Greens!” campaign, which encourages individuals to make fruits and vegetables part of the conversation with their doctors and dentists.

Read more from our CEO, Jenny Englerth, in this guest column published in the York Sunday News.