WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. – The Maya Angelou Research Center on Minority Health at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center has received a $12,000 grant from Johnson & Johnson and the Society for the Arts in Healthcare. The project will use photojournalism to address creatively the health challenges of African Americans.
“The primary goal of the project is to create a patient-focused, self-sustaining model for patient empowerment through which art will facilitate healing, affirmation, and validation of experiences with illness and the health care system,” said Kristy F. Woods, M.D., director of the Angelou Research Center. “Photojournalism provides a medium through which individuals can tell their stories while documenting their personal journeys through visual images. The project also seeks to raise public awareness regarding the national tragedy of racial and ethnic health disparities.”
The 2006 annual Johnson & Johnson/Society for the Arts in Healthcare partnership to promote arts and healing awarded a total of $325,000 to 33 selected organizations using art to help bridge the gap between illness and health. Chosen from 228 proposals, the arts projects serve patients, their families and caregivers in health care settings and in communities, to advance healing and preventative health. For more information about the grant, and about the Society for the Arts in Healthcare, visit www.thesah.org.
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Media Contacts: Jim Steele, jsteele@wfubmc.edu, Shannon Koontz, shkoontz@wfubmc.edu, or Karen Richardson, krchrdsn@wfubmc.edu, at (336) 716-4587.
Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center is an academic health system comprised of North Carolina Baptist Hospital and Wake Forest University Health Sciences, which operates the university’s School of Medicine. The system comprises 1,187 acute care, psychiatric, rehabilitation and long-term care beds and is consistently ranked as one of “America’s Best Hospitals” by U.S. News & World Report.