Celebrating Community Health Workers
Last Updated: September 4, 2024 Friday, August 30, marks the end of National Community Health Worker (CHW) Awareness Week, but RHHD’s CHWs are still moving forward! If you’re lucky enough to know or learn from a CHW, you realize quickly that their focus is on the people around them. CHWs are slow to highlight their own... Continue reading→
Welcome, 2024-2025 COVID-19 vaccines!
Last Updated: September 4, 2024 COVID-19 vaccines are having a moment. The 2024-2025 vaccine is fully approved by the FDA and CDC and is headed to pharmacies, doctors’ offices, and, yes, health departments near you. Get to know this year’s version of the vaccine before you schedule an appointment. Who should get the vaccine? The 2024-2025 COVID-19 vaccine is... Continue reading→
What is . . . Prepardy!
Last Updated: September 4, 2024 September is National Preparedness Month. It’s a time to plan for severe weather and disasters. If we each take small steps over the course of the month, we can prepare ourselves and our loved ones for a wide range of emergencies. It can be scary to think about some of the... Continue reading→
Join the CHW workforce
Last Updated: August 27, 2024 August 26 to 30 is National Community Health Worker Awareness Week, and we’ve got some of the best in the biz! Adranae describes Community Health Workers as superheroes. They have an almost encyclopedic knowledge of the resources that exist in their communities, and they’re skilled at connecting the right resource to... Continue reading→
Newborn Nourishment
Last Updated: August 27, 2024 Adranae Mena, RHHD’s new Maternity Navigation Coordinator, is the mom of three kids, born almost fifteen years apart. In that time, she observed real changes in newborn delivery: “I had a doula when I gave birth to my now 19- and 21-year-olds, and what a big difference to have that type... Continue reading→
Welcome to Maternity Navigation, Adranae Mena!
Last Updated: August 27, 2024 On Friday, August 16, Adranae Mena finished up one of her last tasks as the Community Health Worker (CHW) Senior at RHHD’s Southwood Resource Center: she hosted the center’s seventh anniversary party. Community organizations from Legal Aid Justice Center to Little Hands Virginia set up information tables, a testament to the relationships Adranae cultivated carefully... Continue reading→
Southern HIV/AIDS Awareness Day
Last Updated: August 19, 2024 If you explore the AIDSVu map, an interactive map that illustrates HIV/AIDS data around the U.S., you might notice something startling: the areas with the highest rates of people living with AIDS tend to be clustered in the South. Southern HIV/AIDS Awareness Day takes place on August 20 and highlights the importance of... Continue reading→
When it comes to rabies, prevention is the best medicine
Last Updated: August 19, 2024 Today, fewer than 10 people in the U.S. die from rabies each year. It’s an impressive statistic, but it hides the work behind the scenes that keeps that number as low as possible. RHHD Public Health Nurse Nicole McCurrach started working in clinical rabies ten months ago. On her first day,... Continue reading→
Knocking one out of the park for breastfeeding
Last Updated: August 13, 2024 by Olivia Golden On August 7, RHHD joined several community partners for Knock One Out of the Park for Breastfeeding 2024! In honor of Breastfeeding Awareness Week, RHHD and other local organizations tabled at The Diamond to share about the benefits of breastfeeding and the resources available to those considering... Continue reading→
Meet Carolina Lugo
Last Updated: August 13, 2024 This summer, RHHD welcomed Carolina Lugo as our new School Health Coordinator! The long-time Richmond area resident and mom of two took some time out of her busy first few weeks to talk with us about the importance of health in school, the value of bilingual education and language access,... Continue reading→
Cooling for two: pregnancy and heat
Last Updated: August 5, 2024 We’re talking a lot this summer about extreme heat and heat-related illness. We also know that, for many reasons, extreme heat doesn’t affect everyone equally. Pregnant people are one group who are more at risk for heat-related illness and dehydration during hot days. Our bodies do lots of hard work to cool us down when we get too hot, and pregnant... Continue reading→
Health and Art – a perfect summer match
Last Updated: July 31, 2024 By Kiran Sabharwal One of the largest health concerns in summer months, especially when temperature rise above 86 degrees, is heat-related illness. July temperatures can bring the risk of heat exhaustion or even heat stroke, so it’s important to take breaks from the heat in air-conditioned spots and drink lots of... Continue reading→