This fall, two Buncombe County high schools — T.C. Roberson and A.C. Reynolds — will begin using the Vitals app, which provides information about participating students’ physical, mental and behavioral conditions to school resource officers and other first responders.
Board chair Brownie Newman, Vice Chair Jasmine Beach-Ferarra and member Amanda Edwards have placed a resolution endorsing the Sheriff’s Office’s use of MAT on the commission’s agenda for Tuesday, Aug. 20. The treatment is currently offered to the jail’s pregnant female inmates, but Buncombe officials hope to expand its availability to all incarcerated individuals.
While the trust’s professional leadership remains under consideration, board chair Janice Brumit confirms that its board has filled out its inaugural complement of 14 members from WNC. After the nonprofit hires its inaugural CEO and finishes its strategic plan later this year, she estimates that other organizations will be able to apply for its grants starting in the spring of 2020 and receive money the following fall.
Redmond recently announced that she’s been diagnosed with a life-threatening illnesss: Stage 3 Multiple Myeloma, a cancer of plasma.
Local elected officials say they want Asheville and Buncombe County to be considered a breastfeeding-friendly community to boost lifelong health for residents, but does that intention line up with today’s reality for nursing moms?
Ben’s Friends, a support group for food and beverage industry workers dealing with substance abuse and addiction, held its first meeting at 11 a.m. July 23 at Posana, 1 Biltmore Ave., Asheville. Meetings will continue weekly on Tuesdays at the same time and place. No registration is required. Founded in Charleston, S.C., in 2016 following […]
While Swedish death cleaning hasn’t generated anything like the attention generated by Japanese home organizing phenom Marie Kondo, the approach has gained some adherents in Western North Carolina.
Western North Carolina is a rock climbing mini-mecca, featuring faces such as Looking Glass, John Rock and Rumbling Bald. And for some, this fast-growing sport is a way of life. Together with traditional therapy, it’s played a key role in helping some climb out of depression.
ASHEVILLE, N.C.
A new statewide report on women’s health was unveiled June 25 in Asheville. Mercy Urgent Care is now an in-network service provider for eligible veterans using Veterans Administration benefits. The Asheville Yoga Festival will be held Thursday-Sunday, July 25-28, and one-day passes and a discount for Buncombe County residents are now available.
Health care advocates say improving children’s well-being requires providing access to health insurance and health care services for their parents. While the majority of Buncombe County’s children from low-income families are covered by the Children’s Health Insurance Program or Medicaid, many of their parents lack coverage.
Body type preferences have fluctuated over the last 100 years, but activists in Asheville are encouraging women to be their own icons.
While returning repeatedly to messages of growth and their commitment to long-term investments in the region’s health care infrastructure, the CEO and CFO for HCA Healthcare’s new North Carolina division also responded to questions about the company’s business model, staffing and morale in a June 20 meeting with local media.
Local centers report that the silent meditation retreat business is booming. Ranging from a single day to a full two weeks off the grid, the retreats eliminate unnecessary external stimulation by emphasizing meditation, maintaining an inward focus — and, yes, disconnecting from all tech devices.
This week in brief: health care coverage vigils, a move to honor Asheville’s first African American police lieutenant, summer hours at the Asheville Radio Museum and an end-of-life planning seminar held on the campus of UNC Asheville.
According to Buncombe County Health and Human Services, the county had 21 reported cases of Lyme disease in 2018. Western North Carolina is a hot spot for the disease as well as other vector-borne illnesses (those transmitted by carriers such as mosquitoes, ticks and fleas).
From 2011-17, the use of e-cigarettes by North Carolina students has increased 894% for high schoolers and 430% among middle schoolers, according to the 2017 North Carolina Youth Tobacco Survey. Nonprofits and student activists are working to educate young users about the potential dangers of the drug trend.
Through medication-assisted treatment, inmates with opioid addiction could receive drugs such as naltrexone or buprenorphine, in conjunction with counseling and therapy, to help them avoid returning to dangerous substances such as heroin or fentanyl.
Nonprofit Blue Ridge Health has opened eight school-based clinics: five in Henderson County, where the child poverty rate is 22.5% and 5% of children have no health insurance; one in neighboring Polk County (21.3% child poverty, 5.8% uninsured children); and, last month, two in Jackson County.
Activists with the Health Equity Coalition are organizing a Friday, May 24, community forum to explore how the $1.5 billion Dogwood Health Trust, created from the sale of Mission Health, offers the prospect of “life-changing” investments in the wellbeing of residents in 18 Western North Carolina counties. Also, it’s time to strive to drive less in the runup to the Strive Beyond Summit at Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. in Mills River on Friday, May 31, from 3-5 p.m.
Based on their work with teens experiencing depression, local professionals discussed their observations of a major factor that has changed in young peoples’ lives since 2005: near-universal use of social media.