by Camelia Singletary, MPH, and Elena Vidrascu, MSc

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Mobile Medical Unit Background

Mobile Medical Units were pioneered by the Children’s Health Fund (CHF) over 30 years ago by Paul Simon, Dr. Irwin Redlener, and Karen Redlener. The CHF was founded after several individuals took a tour of a New York City shelter and observed the poor conditions that the children were living in. Over the years, this fund has served over 350,000 disadvantaged and under-served children.

School Health Alliance for Forsyth County (SHA)

As a part of Forsyth County’s School Health Alliance, Stephanie Daniel, PhD, Executive Director of the School Health Alliance for Forsyth County and Professor at Wake Forest Baptist Health, is working with her team to bring healthcare services to under-served students in Forsyth County, North Carolina.

The mission of the School Health Alliance is to improve the ability of students to learn by improving the health and safety of Forsyth County’s school-age children and adolescents and by coordinating and targeting the efforts and resources of all types of community health care providers.

Additionally, the SHA team serves as the School Health Advisory Council (SHAC) for WS/FCS, providing guidance on policy issues that affect students’ health, in accordance with North Carolina statutes.

The School Health Alliance’s Mobile Medical Unit

Mobile medical units serve to bring care to individuals who may be a part of under-served communities. Receiving consistent healthcare allows individuals, and in this case, students to continue to thrive without the additional burden of accessing quality care.

One of the major features of SHA’s provision of healthcare is the Mobile Medical Unit.

The School Health Alliance’s Mobile Medical Unit (MMU) serves students at Carver High School, North Hills Elementary, Main Street Academy, and Parkland High School in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, by providing full medical and mental health screening, treatment, and referrals with the goal of connecting/reconnecting youth to their primary medical and mental health providers.

Read More About by SHA:

• Mineral Springs Elementary and Middle Schools: Comprehensive Health Center
• Ashley Elementary School: Wellness Center
• Winston-Salem Preparatory Academy: Wellness Center

In order to continue to reach students that are in need, please consider donating to the School Health Alliance of Forsyth County.

For further reading, consider these related articles from the Journal of Public Health Management and Practice:*

• Promoting Health and Behavioral Health Equity in California
• Engagement Strategies to Advance Community-Centered Primary Care
• Toward Achieving Health Equity: Emerging Evidence and Program Practice
• Policy Approaches to Advancing Health Equity

*Articles may require a subscription to JPHMP or purchase.

You May Also Enjoy these Resources:

• CDC’s Children’s Mental Health

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Camelia Singletary, MPH, received her master’s degree in public health from the University of South Carolina in 2015. Her research interests include exploring the implementation of school physical activity programs in combination with nutritional components. She is also interested in analyzing the adoption of physical activity and healthy eating skills from a social-cognitive perspective. As a public health communicator at JPHMP Direct, she hopes to create linkages between evidence-based research, public health coursework, and health certification competencies.

 

 

Elena Vidrascu, MSc, recently graduated from Wake Forest University with her MSc in Physiology and Pharmacology. Her primary field of interest is substance abuse, with goals to disseminate information to the public, including addicts and those in recovery, and to influence policy change to push for more integrative approaches towards prevention and treatment. In her spare time, she enjoys playing tennis, hiking, doing puzzles, and cuddling with her kitten Maple.