Disease Educational Church Kit

To reach black who may be unreachable to those outside of the community, the public health department has used the black church in their efforts.[1]  The Black church has been the core of the black community; providing the community leader, the pastor, and being the place for organization.[2] In a study, completed by McBride et al, African Americans perceived themselves as being highly influenced by their church. They also reported that they received information about AIDS from their churches.[3] Since we know that the black church is essentially the core or the leadership of the black community, there needs to be an interaction with the public health sector to provide prevention measures to reduce HIV/AIDS. The Black Church is trusted by the black community and needs to collaborate with the public health sector to attack HIV/AIDS in black high risk communities.[4]

After discussing the black church with the Director of Development, Kristie Lawley, at the Dream Center, a non-denominational predominantly black church with 1000+ membership, located in the black community in zip code, 63115, I found out that the Black Church actually wants to get more involved with HIV/AIDS prevention measures because they realize that it is an issue in the community.[5] Currently, Churches may feel that it is an issue but they do not offer many health programs.[6] Many black churches say that they do not have the resources to address AIDS, but really will not help do to moral beliefs.[7] Kristie Lawley proposed that if the public health sector gave them faith-based community awareness posters, video and pamphlets, then they would distribute them to the community but only if the information adopted the abstinence only message but still encouraged people to get tested. She went on to state that the church deals with too many issues as it is and HIV/AIDS is not the main priority. She said that it would be easier on the church administrators if they received information to hand out.[8] With this, I will create a Disease Education Church Kit (DECK). The kit will include, videos, posters, and pamphlets stressing the importance of abstinence but also stressing that if one is engaging in sexual activity, then one must get tested. The estimated cost of all of the kit will be $500 per kit but will educate numerous people in the black community, especially those that put a plethora of trust into the Black Church.

Surprisingly, the church, the states, faith-based and community organizations receive $188 million to focus on the AIDS epidemic mainly in minority communities. Although each organization or church nation wide may only receive a few thousands of dollars from this fund, they can do a tremendous amount. Under the budget for 2007, President Bush has proposed to provide $204 million for abstinence only education programs.[9] With this in mind, there is more than enough money to support initiatives such as DECK, which keep in mind the importance of abstinence but still stresses getting tested.

If we provide this, we will equip the black church with the necessary materials to educate the community as Kristie Lawley suggested. A public health official in St. Louis, Dale Rigley, under the HIV/STD division of the St. Louis Communicable Disease Control center, said that they deeply wanted to be apart of the church system, so this initiative can bring the groups closer. But when discussing the fact that the black church wanted pamphlets and information to distribute to the community, David Herbie from the St. Louis Effort for AIDS, said, “[w]e do not even hear from the church. They do not contact us. You cannot put a pamphlet on to protect you. Besides that, what are you going to do? [Overall the] Church needs to get off of the ‘bible’ and do something.”[10]

Although there are several moral issues that may need to be addressed, the Black Church can also do “little” things such as preach about HIV/AIDS in sermons perhaps once a month since none do this currently. They can continue to preach about abstinence but also preach about the importance of being tested. They can also establish a relationship with the public health department. The black churches’ involvement in prevention measures depends on the size of the congregation, the stability of the church, educational level of minister and church ownership.[11] When these are met, some programs are offered ministries distribute information on HIV/AIDS and STDs.[12] In a study done by Thomas et al, it was noted that 67% of black churches provided some sort of outreach program for the community.[13] The struggle is primarily with moral issues of the church which preaches solely abstinence. The way to combat this is that the public health sector gives the black church information to subliminally hit at these issues, such as DECK. Also, we could use someone as the link between the church and public health who has been trained in theology as well as public health.[14]

Overall, programs such as SHOVE and DECK need to be implemented to cover a wider range of areas affected by HIV/AIDS. There are several high correlations to the AIDS Rate that I found for St. Louis, Missouri in my correlation study, but as a public health official, I can only expend most of my energy into a few programs. The goals of these programs are to give testing and treatment to those groups that are at very high risk for HIV/AIDS and to use the Black Church to help facilitate change. Since so much trust is entrusted in the Black Church, it needs to step up and add to its teachings by recognizing that there is a major issue that is occurring which is affecting the entire community tremendously. Essentially, the black community needs to rally together, with the support of the public health sectors, to stop this horrific disease from spreading throughout the community because they can only help themselves.