Journal of Community Medicine & Health Education
Open Access

Research Article

Weight Management and Hypertension Services in a Rural Public Health Clinic

¹College of Allied Health, California Baptist University, Riverside, CA 92504, USA

²Dean and Professor, McWhorter School of Pharmacy, Samford University, Birmingham, AL 35229, USA

³Exercise Science and Sports Medicine, Samford University, Birmingham, AL 35229, USA

Corresponding Author:

Dr. Charles D Sands IV
Dean and Professor
College of Allied Health
California Baptist University
Riverside, CA 92504, USA
E-mail: csands@calbaptist.edu

Received Date: November 25, 2011; Accepted Date: January 04, 2012; Published Date: January 06, 2012

Citation: Sands CD IV, Sands CD III, Hensarling RW (2012) Weight Management and Hypertension Services in a Rural Public Health Clinic. J Community Med Health Edu 2:115. doi: 10.4172/2161-0711.1000115

Copyright: © 2012 Sands CD IV, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Objective: To improve chronic disease health outcomes through a culturally competent, preventive care intervention for the underserved, economically disadvantaged, underinsured, and other people of a rural Alabama county.

Design: One-group pre-test/post-test design.

Setting: Public health department in a rural county in the Southeastern part of the United States.

Methods: A free, weekly clinic was held at the county health department. The clinic was staffed by Samford University pharmacy and exercise science faculty, a public health pharmacy practice resident, senior pharmacy students, and undergraduate exercise science majors. During weekly visits patients had baseline measures assessed and they were interviewed on medication therapy, dietary practice, and exercise regimen. Weekly follow-up to previous sessions provided opportunities for health coaching and monitoring of goal-setting.

Results: The intervention clinic averaged 10 patients per week. Adult participants (n=357) had a mean age of 53.6±17.3. Comparison of year 1 (201.3±51.5) and year 2 (187.1±67.6) weight was statistically significant (p=0.004). Year 1 systolic blood pressure was 141.6±18.4 mmHg and diastolic blood pressure was 79.2±10.6. Where follow-up measures were available (n=81), the year 2 systolic blood pressure was 139.2±20.4 mmHg while the year 2 diastolic blood pressure was 77.1±11.8 mmHg. Year 1 BMI was 32.1±12.7 and year 2 BMI was 31.5±14.9 (n=23).

Conclusion: Preventive services provided by pharmacists and health educators had a statistically significant effect on weight loss. While not statistically significant, clinical significance is noted on other key measures as blood pressure and BMI were trending in a positive direction. Further efforts towards weight loss will likely result in statistically significant changes to blood pressure and BMI.

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