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Gina Jones-Wilson, president of the Upper Hammonds Plains Community Development Association and community coordinator for the vaccine clinic held in Upper Hammonds Plains, says it’s a long-overdue development. “We are effected by so many diseases on a higher scale than most, so in order for the health system to address our needs, they need that data,” she told The Coast.
In the US, we know that 41 percent of Black people have high blood pressure, compared to just 27 percent of white folks. There are no such stats in Canada, but Jones-Wilson says high blood pressure and diabetes are more common in Black communities. She says when community groups get together, sometimes the conversation turns to health problems, and the group realizes the same issues are effecting everyone in the room or are present in their family history. "It’s about five or six of those diseases that were in every Black community here in Nova Scotia," says Jones-Wilson.