DUO Health

What We Do & Why

DUO Health equips and empowers communities using health-focused, outreach programs and activities that contribute to sustainable, health improvement – Mind, Body, and Spirit… Socially!

OUR VISION & MISSION

Eradicating Health Disparities & Inequities

DUO Health, was created as a bridge to community service for members of Seventh-day Adventist Churches (Adventist), by leveraging almost 200 years of health principles practiced by this vibrant, multi-cultural, Protestant denomination.  Loma Linda, California represents the only Blue Zone in North America where the longest living Americans – regardless of race, ethnicity, or gender – are known to reside. Over one-third of the city’s residents are practicing Adventists who live by Eight Principles recognized as their “ticket” to good health, an excellent quality-of-life, and of course… longevity!

DUO Health brings Adventist health principles to America’s urban centers! We are now training and equipping Health Educators and Health Advocates, many recruited from Seventh-day Adventist congregations, in a collaborative effort to make health-improving workshops and seminars accessible to their neighbors.  Historically, faith communities have been an under-utilized resource for building community awareness about disease prevention. Other faiths are welcome to join with us and Health-interested Community Stakeholders (HCS) in an, “all-hands-on-deck” effort to confront/reverse health disparities caused by structural and systemic racism and inequities in healthcare, especially in communities identified as economically disadvantaged and/or Black Indigenous People of Color (BIPOC).

Media relationships and Stakeholder alliances keep residents informed about the timing of DUO’s practical, evidence-based, educational solutions. Many of our health interventions are available for FREE in target communities made possible by generous, Stakeholder contributions of time, space, expertise, and funding.  CHOSEN’s, re-CONNECT Zone’s mission focus, is to inform and educate Youth and Young Adults (and entire communities) to reach their peers using health edication and advocacy strategies about healthy lifestyle alternatives we hope will spare them, “sickness that accompanies ignorance and poor health choices.”

 

                                                                “Two are better off than one, because together they can work more effectively.”  – Solomon

DUO encourages the development of Community Engagement Zones (CEZ). CEZs are contiguous neighborhoods or towns where several Adventist Churches reside within near-geographic proximity.  Churches are not left to engage the community in isolation, but on the contrary, combine the collective talents and resources of CEZ churches to increase capacity, programmatic effectiveness, and the sustainability of our health-focused outreach programs and activities. 

Working closely with church leaders and members, DUO facilitates a months-long process to streamline CEZ churches’ seamless entry into the community’s, lifestyle-health education framework by serving as a catalyst for developing dynamic, strategic alliances with forward-thinking, Community Stakeholders. Mutually-beneficial partnerships leverage the untapped talents, time, and human capital CEZ church members regularly-invest in the fight to improve health city-wide, especially in BIPOC communities.  The exchange of ideas and resources in the Community Engagement Zone can exponentially increase the number of “concentric circles of support” communities are able to provide for residents.

Youth & Young Adult ENGAGEMENT & EMPOWERMENT

CHOSEN

CHOSEN’s suite of Community Health Advocacy and Education programs help build awareness and knowledge; especially in communities adversely impacted by health disparities caused by lack of access to healthcare and structural and systemic racism.  FREE, weekly workshops, are offered in partner-communities, to address chronic, lifestyle diseases. 

CHOSEN Networks:  Making HEALTH EQUITY a reality FOR ALL!

A community’s future is positively-correlated to the trajectory of its children, youth, and young adults.  Their destinies, for better or for worse, are inextricably tied to this generation of Community Stakeholders! Ensuring communities are equipping to protect and foster the health of this demographic – Mind, Body, Spirit – is NEXGen’s Priority One!  Outcomes for ZERO to 36ers are worsening:

Rationale for Zero to 36

“The 25- to 34-year age group is experiencing the most opioid overdose deaths – 17,344 – a 38% increase from 2019, and a 1,312% increase since 1999.” 

This, and other conclusions drawn from studies highlighting 21st century challenges faced by many young people, should be eye-opening for every city, every community, for every Community Stakeholder in the United States.  Our focus, our vision for NEXGen populations must broaden and expand to include long-term life-success.  Current models are missing the mark.

NEXGen Networks engage, educate, equip, empower, and encourage (E5) NEXGen-aged residents to work collaboratively with youth-serving organizations and members of other Stakeholder Groups to create “a dynamic, health-driven vision for their community’s future.”  With community health (physical, mental/emotional, economic, financial, etc.) as the vehicle for engagement and leadership development, young people’s skills are cultivated in welcoming environments where they are trained to master, “the art and science” of health-focused, community outreach and health advocacy. 

SOURCES: Florence, C., Luo, F., & Rice, K. (2021). The economic burden of opioid use disorder and fatal opioid overdose in the United States, 2017. Drug and Alcohol Dependence 218 (2021). Accessed on line 4/26/2022: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2020.108350

CHOSEN Leadership Development.  Peer-to-Peer Supports.  Community Building.  

CHOSEN Leadership Teams, partner with Community Stakeholders to implement a re-design of historical approaches to Youth and Young Adult Engagement and Leadership Development.  “A place at the table” creates tangible opportunities for learning, growing new-found skills, social capital building, and community strengthening.

CHOSEN’s collaborative design is calibrated to impact community health outcomes in the short- and long-term with science-based, community building tools and activities.  Our role in your community’s, health improvement matrix is to train Young Adults to conduct an array of lifestyle-health education tools and programs (i.e., Workshops and Seminars in Nutrition, Community Depression and Anxiety Relief,  Tobacco Cessation (Vaping), Plant-based Cooking, Diabetes Reversal, etc.). CHOSEN aspires to foster long-term, community health and well-being – Mind. Body.  Spirit. Social – by engaging and mentoring Youth, 13 – 21, in our programs.