TACKLING TEEN HEALTH

Symposium explores adolescent challenges

The issues and challenges surrounding teen health were the focus of the 12th annual Jean Mills Health Symposium, held Feb. 5 at the East Carolina Heart Institute at East Carolina University.

Bringing together community leaders, residents, health providers and youth organizations, the event featured workshops and presentations on substance abuse, teen pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases, violence and eating disorders.

“This event is a way of pulling in all kinds of assets to look at best practices and support systems for our youth,” said Philip J. Leaf, the keynote speaker for the symposium. Leaf is a director at the Center for Adolescent Health, Center for the Prevention of Youth Violence and the Urban Health Institute at Johns Hopkins University.

Audience members listen to the keynote speaker at the 12th annual Mills Symposium.

With the increasing prevalence of single-parent households and those in which both parents work, along with many other factors, Leaf said today’s children spend less time with adults than at any other time in history. Therefore it is vital to focus on adolescents and provide them with positive opportunities.

The entire community, not just health providers, plays a role in teen health, he added.

“Health is in the home, it’s in the faith institutions, it’s in the after-school programs,” he said.

Leaf’s address centered on the many challenges facing teens, especially in urban and impoverished environments, the impact of youthful decisions on adult life, and the importance of schools and adult role models.

“They need to have adults in their lives who can help them, who can communicate with them and who can help train them to avoid these (health issues),” he said. He emphasized that the community and health providers need to focus on the deeper problems in the home and in the community to address the root causes of the problem.

Jean Elaine Mills earned her bachelor’s degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1977 and a master’s in public administration with a concentration in community health from ECU in 1984. She died from breast cancer in 2000.

Amos T. Mills III, the brother of Jean Elaine Mills, an ECU alumna, created the event in her honor.

The Jean Mills Health Symposium was created through an endowment established by her brother, Amos T. Mills III, to bring attention to critical health care issues facing minority populations and to seek solutions.

“Our health is more important than anything else in life,” Amos Mills said. “This event is a way to honor my sister and make the community a better place.”

To that end, Mills committed additional funding at Friday’s event that will help continue the program for years to come.

The Jean Mills Health Symposium is hosted by the College of Allied Health Sciences in collaboration with the ECU Medical & Health Sciences Foundation.

Philip J. Leaf, the keynote speaker for the 12th annual Jean Mills Health Symposium – pictured below, addressed the importance of teen health and the need for community collaboration.