Columbia High School students learned about the long-term health impacts of conditions such as hypertension, diabetes, obesity and smoking at V-Healthy Day on Wednesday in the school library. Throughout the school day, doctors, healthcare professionals, nursing students and patients taught students about vascular health and disease.
V-Healthy Day is a grassroots vascular disease education, awareness and prevention campaign that empowers young high school students to understand the implications of environmental and genetic risks they are exposed to today on their vascular health decades later.
The V-Healthy program consisted of a 40-minute curriculum utilizing didactics, hands-on workshops and patient stories to focus on vascular risk factor awareness, innovation and prevention.
Students watched a brief presentation and then rotated through three different stations:
- Diagnosis Station where students learned about the life cycle of the disease
- Blood Pressure Station where students learned how to accurately measure blood pressure with an automatic BP monitor
- Innovation Station where the students were shown devices that are used in the treatment of vascular disease
All students who participated in V-Healthy Day have the opportunity to win one of three scholarships to be used towards post-secondary education. Students who are interested in participating will be provided with blood pressure monitors to take home so they can measure and record the blood pressure and heart rate of 1-2 adults for one week. They then must submit an essay or video describing what is vascular health and the importance of V-Healthy Day.
More than 700 students have already participated in this study and discovered undiagnosed Hypertension in over 50% of their parents, nearly half of which had Stage 2 Hypertension with alarmingly elevated blood pressures.
V-Healthy Day was sponsored by Columbia’s Serious About Science club.
“Serious About Science is proud of the events we have been able to bring to our community at Columbia High School,” said Columbia Science teacher Heidi Gleason. “V Healthy Day was another great example of integrating real science applications introduced by professionals. The feedback has been very positive and next year we hope to make the opportunity available to more of our Colombia students.”
Thank you to the health care professionals who brought V-Healthy Day to Columbia High School!
Scholarship Eligibility Guidelines
- Submit essay or video answering two questions:
- What is Vascular Health?
- What is the importance of V-Healthy Day?
- Length:
- Essay submission is less than 2,000 words
- Video submission is less than 2 minutes
- Citation:
- Use of outside sources are cited and obtained appropriately
- Deadline:
- Friday, May 24, 2019 by 3:00 p.m. EST
- Cover sheet, Blood Pressure and Heart Rate Log, Assessment sheet and essay/video must be received by deadline
- Cover sheet should include applicant’s name, school name, biology class teacher’s name and applicant’s email
- Questions:
- Please contact Center for Vascular Awareness via email info@MyVascularHealth.org or call 518-482-4025 with questions