January 10, 2002 | Read Time: 6 minutes
For Janet M. Brooks, reaching out to minorities to help prevent heart disease is a personal mission.
Ms. Brooks, who was recently appointed vice president for the American Heart Association’s
new National Minority Initiatives, has had close family members die and come close to dying because of heart problems.
“My grandmother died of a massive heart attack at the age of 39,” she says. “And then my father had his first heart attack in his early 30s.” Thanks to healthy changes in his lifestyle, Ms. Brooks’s father survived and is now in his 70s.
Many black families are similar to Ms. Brooks’s, and are disproportionately affected by heart disease compared with whites. “When we go out and do workshops, if we ask the audience how many people have had a relative or someone they know die of a heart attack, it’s probably two-thirds of the room,” she says. The new program she is leading is designed to help prevent heart disease in African-Americans and Hispanics. In addition, the heart association hopes the efforts will encourage more blacks and Hispanics to donate and volunteer.
About six years ago, while she was working as a public-relations consultant in Los Angeles, Ms. Brooks volunteered her services to the Western affiliate of the American Heart Association, offering to write news releases about local events for the health organization. Impressed with her work, the nonprofit group hired her, and for the past few years Ms. Brooks has worn many hats until finally donning her most recent one last October as head of minority outreach in the association’s national office in Dallas.
In an interview with The Chronicle, Ms. Brooks discussed her new position.
What are the goals of the new office?
I’m revamping our Search Your Heart, a church-based outreach program, updating it, and adding new components. I’m making sure that our materials in the programs we implement are culturally appropriate in Spanish and can work in minority communities. We have several excellent programs across our affiliates that are reaching out to African-Americans, Hispanics, Asians, Haitians, Ethiopians. Also, in each affiliate, they’re working with large community-based organizations and collaborating with national organizations, especially African-American and Hispanic organizations, that have the same mission as we do so we can work together. I’m setting up training so that directors can outreach to their community-based organizations.
The long-term goal is for us to have specific evaluation and outcome for two national programs that we have, one for African-Americans and one for Hispanics, so we can really measure the impact that we’re having on the community.
Why did the American Heart Association decide to create this new position?
The position will help us because we have minority program directors in about 14 of our [15 regional] affiliates that are reaching out. I’ll be working with them and working with the Search Your Heart program. I’ll be setting up guidelines for our directors so we can all be on the same page and be more effective.
The American Heart Association didn’t exactly have this specified position before, but others were working with us out in the field and getting funding on a national level and creating national programs. I’ll lend [them] some guidance and direction.
What are the challenges in your new position?
The big obstacle will always be crossing cultural barriers. When you work with different audiences, it’s important to do the hands-on outreach, where you’re there in the trenches among the people and teaching them and not lecturing, but letting them participate and understanding what we’re talking about when we talk about prevention of cardiovascular disease and stroke. That’s my main focus, that we really understand [our audiences], and we build on that when we teach about CPR [cardiopulmonary resuscitation] and [using] 911 [emergency services].
We also want to add advocacy to the community because there’s so much that they can do. They need to learn that they have a voice and need to write to their legislators and know that they can make change within their community in terms of their medical care. When we talk to many people, they’re afraid to go to their doctor, and we teach them that they need to understand that your doctor is there for you, and you need to know your cholesterol number, and to not just know the number, but know what it means.
Why is it important to reach out to minorities?
Because there is such a disparity in the death rate, and it’s climbing. If you look at obesity rates for African-American women, it’s climbing and we’re at the top of the list for [having a] stroke. We’re teaching African-American women to take better care of themselves.
Many people think that cardiovascular disease develops in your 30s or 40s, not understanding that in adolescence it begins. If you look at the trends of young people and the way they’re eating, and what mothers are teaching their kids, by the time they get to 20, their arteries will be clogged.
If you look at African-Americans, many of their eating habits come from slavery. It’s been passed on from generation to generation, such as putting the fat back in the food and taking the scraps from the master’s table. It’s really unhealthy, and now we’re more sedentary. And for Hispanics, too, the same thing, putting lard into making tortillas and similar eating habits with high-fat diets. Though Hispanics do tend to eat more fruits and vegetables than African-Americans.
Besides Hispanics and African-Americans, are there other minorities you’re reaching out to?
Those are our targets, but we do have Asian program directors in San Francisco and L.A. There are also directors working with Native Americans in the Midwest.
How does your background make you the best person for this job?
Taking [control of] the programs in Los Angeles and what I was able to do with the programs in terms of outreach and [making them] entrenched. Also the relationships I built with community-based organizations and getting funding for the programs.
What national organizations are you hoping to work with?
The Association of Black Cardiologists, the NAACP, and the National Council of La Raza.
What do you consider your greatest professional accomplishment?
This position, which allows me to go into many communities and make a difference and even save lives. When we’ve done medical screenings, there are people we have literally driven to the hospital because their blood pressure was so high. Or we’ve screened young children and adults that have been diabetic and didn’t know it. It has an impact to know that you’re making a difference every day.
Education: Earned a bachelor’s degree in English from the University of Southern California and a master’s degree in education from National University.
Previous employment: Worked as an education consultant on children’s programming at KCET Television, a public-broadcasting station in Los Angeles, and as a public-relations coordinator for the Los Angeles Unified School District.
Hobbies: Jogs and writes poetry.
Charitable interests: Donates money to the United Negro College Fund.
