Take Care. Stay Healthy. Work Those Things Out!

Today’s topic is health and wellness, specifically preventive care.

If you were among the tens of millions who watched Sunday’s Super Bowl, you might have noticed a commercial featuring Mary J. Blige. It did not promote a new album, a concert tour or even her incredible half time show performance. Instead, it promoted a routine preventive health procedure that women are encouraged to have performed each year: a mammogram. As inspiring as her Super Bowl performance was, the impact that this ad could have is much, much more powerful.

The truth is that during the pandemic, many of us postponed all kinds of routine preventive health care.

The AMA estimates that as many as 41% of patients postponed such visits in the first months of the pandemic: many because of limitations on access to providers due to COVID. In a study that covered healthcare visits through spring 2021, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation identified that “1 in 10 nonelderly adults reported delaying or going without health care in the past 30 days due to fear of virus exposure.” Their study reported even higher levels of delay in communities of color.

In her song “Work That,” Mary J. Blige tells a personal story of perseverance that may speak to all of us coming out of the pandemic: after everything thrown our way, we still have to keep on, take care of ourselves, and “work that thing out.” So, in the spirit of NOVA’s commitment to the health and well-being of our community and the Black History Month theme of Black Health and Wellness, I want to encourage everyone who has delayed and deferred preventive care to get these appointments back on the calendar. You matter to me, to each other and to NOVA, so as COVID transmission rates fall (dramatically) and health providers’ schedules reopen, let’s work those things out!