Despite the downpour Saturday morning, about 160 people still came out to Wingate University’s second annual free Community Health Fair that offered a wide range of services — more than 60 informational booths, a variety of screenings, flu shots, mammograms, a blood drive, a tour of the Mega Heart and more.
“The overall goal of the fair is to help improve the health of people in our community,” said Luanne Williams, Wingate’s director of marketing and communications.
According to Williams and the health fair committee, North Carolina’s rate of heart disease is higher than the national average. Illnesses such as diabetes are also prevalent, and there are too many people who don’t have a physician or don’t see their doctor on a regular basis.
The health fair can’t take the place of that ongoing medical care, but it can serve as an entry point, whereby people get screened or listen to a presentation and realize they need to follow up with a visit to the doctor to better take care of themselves.
“Heart Health was the focus of the event this year, and we had activities for all ages, so it was truly a family affair,” Williams said.
Wingate also had help from many organizations in the community. The N.C. Cooperative Extension partnered to provide the location. The sponsors for the day were Blue Cross-Blue Shield of North Carolina, Novant Health and Atrium Health among many others.
The committe added several new additions to the fair, including free flu shots from Walgreens for people ages 14 and up; a mobile mammogram unit from Novant Health; a cardiologist from Sanger Heart and Vascular Institute was on hand to answer questions as children and adults toured a huge, inflatable heart; and Novant provided a primary care physician at the event.
The university’s health-education unit made its debut, donated by Atrium Health, and upfitted with funding from Foundation for a Healthy Carolina and Blue Cross-Blue Shield of North Carolina.
The mobile unit will primarily serve underserved, uninsured and underinsured members of the community in Union and Anson counties. The university will put pharmacy, physical therapy, physician assistant studies and nursing students at the center of this work alongside faculty.
“We’re pleased to be able to add these new features to the fair,” said Dr. Carolyn Ford, the university’s community health care outreach director. “We hope people will come out for all of the screenings and the flu shots.”
Through Feb. 14, 52 people in North Carolina have died from the flu this season, according to a report from the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services. The flu is widespread in the state, and experts say the number of cases has not peaked.
As they did last year, more than 150 of Wingate University’s future pharmacists, physician assistants, physical therapists and nurses joined local health professionals to man the 37 booths at the fair, which will also include screenings ranging from blood pressure and blood sugar to diabetic foot checks and oral health assessments.
“The health fair is also a wonderful opportunity for our health sciences students — those in our pharmacy, physical therapy, physician assistant and nursing programs — to put their knowledge to work and to work together,” Williams said. “It gives them practice cooperating across the different professions, just as they will be working with all types of health professionals in their clinical practice.”
The students planned and set up 24 booths with help from faculty members who were volunteering on site as well.
As for plans for future fairs, Wingate assess the results of Saturday’s event for the next several weeks.
“We have lots of exit surveys to tally, and we also asked each vendor to give us feedback via an evaluation form to help us measure the fair’s impact,” Williams said. “Once all that data is processed, we’ll know more about our results and plans for future events.”
Wingate also had the Mega Heart on campus on the day before the health fair, and invited seventh-graders from Monroe Middle School’s Academy of Health Science to take part in a mini health fair in the McGee Health and Wellness Center.
Wingate University nursing offers a station where children could make their own stress balls to squeeze at the health fair.
Peachland resident Linn Waller receives advice from a Wingate University physical therapy student about proper posture and ergonomics at Saturday’s health fair.