Breanna Reeves
Beverly Jones Wright has been a member of San Bernardino’s New Hope Missionary Baptist Church (New Hope MBC) for 42 years. As a former health educator with the public health department, Wright is the chairperson of the social and health concerns ministry and community liaison at New Hope.
Although retired, Wright is still working to educate her community about different health issues that impact them as a community outreach advocate.
As an ambassador for the California Department of Public Health’s (CDPH) statewide awareness campaign, “Take on Alzheimer’s,” New Hope MBC is raising awareness about Alzheimer’s and providing the community with education resources and Wright is helping to lead the effort.
New Hope MBC was assembled in 1911, as the first predominantly Black Baptist church in San Bernardino, and has supported their congregants and the community by raising awareness about issues that affect them. Every year, the church hosts a festival that invites different health organizations and businesses to set up booths to distribute resources and information to community members.
“We’ve been involved in doing health campaigns for quite some period of time, so with Alzheimer’s being the latest or the newest [campaign] that the California Department of Public Health is dealing with, we’re happy to be able to get on that train, too,” Wright said. “Because we always are in need of more information and we always seem to be the last to get the message.”
Prior to joining the Take on Alzheimer’s awareness campaign, Wright had surface knowledge about Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias. She often used the words interchangeably until she learned through the campaign that Alzheimer’s is a type of dementia and the most common form.
Dementia is caused by physical changes in the brain. It’s used as a general term for the loss of memory and other mental abilities that are severe enough to affect daily life. There are several different types of dementia such as mixed dementia, vascular dementia and Frontotemporal dementia.
“I was able to learn that dementia is the big picture and then Alzheimer’s is a little piece from that and people can be diagnosed at different levels,” Wright explained. “I also probably could have guessed how it was impacting our communities.”
Older Black Americans are twice as likely as older white Americans to have Alzheimer’s or another dementia, according to the Alzheimer’s Association.
Throughout her profession, Wright attended conferences that always reported Black Americans at the high end of disparities across several different health categories. From heart disease to cancer to infant mortality, Black people have always experienced these conditions at a disparate rate. She was unsurprised to learn that Alzheimer’s affected Black people and communities of color at the same rate.
As an ambassador for the campaign, New Hope MBC has received informational graphics and materials from CDPH. The church has published infographics in their weekly bulletin and presented the information during service. Jai Kensey, a spokesperson for the campaign, explained that ambassador organizations receive a stipend, in addition to educational materials such as postcards and social media graphics, to support New Hope MBC’s outreach and engagement efforts.
Online resources can be found on the Take on Alzheimer’s website that educates the public about the disease, how to talk to loved ones about it and provides information about the disease’s signs and symptoms.
“These are the types of resources that we’ve developed to ensure that people know how to do those things: recognizing the signs, getting past the stigma and also how to start these conversations with their friends and loved ones and physicians,” said Kensey.
While these resources have been helpful, Wright shared that some challenges with the campaign have been needing more than digital resources on the screen. For older adults, specifically, visiting the Take on Alzheimer’s website can be a challenge for anyone not familiar with using computers.
“The whole technology thing is relatively not available to everybody…particularly for this target population, because it’s dealing with people over 65,” Wright said. “The people in our church are in their 70s, in their 80s, and so trying to get information to them via the website or via the awareness campaign hasn’t been the easiest for us.”
Although sharing information beyond directing community members to the website has been a challenge, Wright has been working with another congregant, Tina Darling, who is the coordinator of the health ministry. Together, the duo is partnering in boosting the awareness campaign by planning an in-person forum so that people can ask questions and engage one another on the topics of Alzheimer’s disease, dementia and caregiving.
Members of the church have approached Wright in confidence about their own experiences with caring for a loved one with Alzheimer’s disease and have asked about resources such as placement options and how to recognize the signs of dementia.
“I think, overall, because the church has been watching these messages, they’re beginning to be a little more comfortable and a little more caring, and actually offering to give support,” Wright shared.
The husband of a well-known congregant who has Alzheimer’s shared his experience as his wife’s primary caregiver with Wright. After discussing the situation, several people volunteered to help him so he could take respite.
According to California’s Master Plan for Aging, an estimated five million family caregivers support their parents, spouses and friends who need help. Nearly 1.7 million of these individuals are caring for someone with Alzheimer’s or another type of dementia, oftentimes with little support or training.
“We also provide them with information to support caregivers because we know, particularly in our community, we don’t even call ourselves caregivers, we’re just taking care of mama, daddy, uncle or grandpa or grandma,” Kensey explained. “We don’t see ourselves as caregivers.”
The CDPH’s Take on Alzheimer’s campaign sets out to ultimately reduce the fear or embarrassment surrounding conversations about Alzheimer’s and to encourage communities most at risk to ask questions and be informed. By partnering with faith-based organizations and community-based organizations in communities of color, CDPH aims to increase awareness across regions greatly impacted by the illness like Los Angeles, San Bernardino and San Diego Counties.
“We’re just working to help people prioritize their health, and to be the very best they can be even in aging because you don’t automatically have to just accept that,” said Wright. “You can figure out ways to work with it…or ways in which you can experience a better quality of life with it.”
As part of the ongoing campaign, CDPH will host a Take on Alzheirmer’s panel in San Diego on June 20, at a local senior center where the public can attend, hear from experts and ask questions about aging and dementia.