DECEMBER 11TH 2024
ZOOM LINK
1:00PM ET, 12:00 PM CT, 11:00 AM MT AND 10:00AM PT
Description of the event: This presentation will begin as a replay from the 2024 AAE Conference in Charlotte NC and will then have some updates and insight as to the new challenges facing this region as a result of Hurricane Helene. It's incredibly timely and a circumstance that continues to plague the western NC in the Asheville and mountain region.
Embracing Holistic Health: North Carolina Medicaid Pilot Site for U.S.
Speaker: Melinda Shuler MHS, RCP, RRT, CTTS, HHS, AE-C Serves as the Quality Director of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indian Tribal Option--the first Tribal Managed Care Organization in the Nation. Prior to that, she served as the Regional Clinical Director of the Regional Asthma Disease Management Program of Mission Children’s Hospital. A National Asthma Demonstration Site, designated by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute of the NIH. The Regional Asthma Disease Management Program, a holistic model of care, helped to inform NC Medicaid Transformation. Melinda also serves as the Executive Director and Co-Founder of the WNC Lighthouse, INC. A non-profit, faith-based community organization that was created to holistically address health disparities for our most vulnerable population of the western region of North Carolina
Melinda holds a Master of Health Science and a BSBA from Duke University and Western Carolina University. She has completed post graduate work in Asthma Care and an Associate of Applied Science in Respiratory Care. Melinda holds several credentials.
She has published multiple white papers and developed state and national educational programs and curriculums. She has served AAE as a board member and fulfilled two terms in her Presidency 2022 and 2023 and is currently fulfilling the role of Co-Chair and immediate past president.
Melinda has been blessed with a wonderful husband and two children. She enjoys spending time with family and friends and is actively involved in her local church.
Objectives:
- Define Holistic Health
- Identification of Social Determinants of Health (SDOH)
Practice Makes Perfect! Strategies & Tools for Communicating about Environmental Asthma Triggers with Families
Speaker: Neasha Graves, MPA Environmental Health Outreach Manager, UNC Center for Environmental Health & Susceptibility
Neasha B. Graves has built her career around educating vulnerable populations, with particular focus on environmental health and adult literacy. In her role as the environmental health outreach manager in the in the UNC Center for Public Engagement with Science (CPES), she works with colleagues to develop and implement environmental health programming aimed at helping public health professionals and communities they serve understand risk factors for environmentally related disease, including asthma, environmental cancers and metal- and phthalates-induced disease. This work is part of CPES’s research translation and community engagement strategies and activities in partnerships with the UNC Center for Environmental Health and Susceptibility (UNC CEHS), the UNC Center for Early Life Exposures And Neurotoxicity (UNC CLEAN) and the NC Division of Public Health’s (DPH) Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Program.
Graves facilitates collaborations with state and local public health and housing agencies to develop environmental health education programming, co-convening dozens of stakeholders in meetings of the NC Lead and Healthy Homes Outreach Task Force. Similarly, for UNC CEHS and UNC CLEAN, she and her colleagues convene stakeholder advisory boards that are comprised of state and local public health agency partners with expertise in public health policy, women and children’s health, and community outreach and engagement.
Objectives:
- Identify common environmental exposures that exacerbate asthma
- Identify strategies and tools for communicating environmental asthma triggers.
- Brainstorm and practice communicating these strategies.