Healthy Hoops Presented as Case Study in Ethical Health Promotion at International Forum in Belgium

November 20, 2007
Philadelphia, PA - Keystone Mercy Health Plan's Healthy Hoops asthma management and prevention program was recently presented as a case study at a European convention on ethical health promotions. The conference, held in Belgium, examined the moral necessity of addressing health inequalities across all populations, with a specific focus on health promotion programs that seek to address these.

Health Advocate and Columnist Glenn Ellis, who was invited to present at the conference, chose the nationally recognized and NCQA award winning Healthy Hoops program for his presentation. As a communications and marketing consultant for Keystone Mercy Health Plan, Ellis has seen first hand how Healthy Hoops has succeeded in reducing health disparities in an ethical manner.

The conference, "Setting an Ethical Agenda for Health Promotion," brought together scholars from both the fields of ethics and of health promotion in order to identify and discuss the ethical issues that are at stake within the context of health promotion.  The conference examined the applicability of the achievements of biomedical ethics within the context of health promotion.  Leading Bio-ethicists from 31 countries who attended the gathering offered an overwhelmingly positive response to the Healthy Hoops presentation.

One conference attendee, Ahmad Binsumeit Badawy Jamalilyl, Professor at the College of Medicine, Sultan Qaboos University in Oman, said, "the discussion on Healthy Hoops has enlightened me, and made me view ethical health promotion events differently."

The conference was hosted by the Institute for Law, Ethics, & Society at Ghent University and co-organized by the departments of Public Health at Ghent University and the Free University of Brussels and by the Flemish Institute for Health Promotion (VIG). The conference was co-sponsored by the International Union for Health Promotion and Education (IUHPE) and the Research Foundation-Flanders (FWO).

About the Healthy Hoops Program
Healthy Hoops is an innovative asthma management program that uses basketball as a platform to teach children with asthma and their families how to proactively manage the disease through proper nutrition, exercise, and medication use. The program was developed to bridge the racial disparity gap of children with asthma, the most common chronic disease among children in America, according to the National Center for Health Statistics. Healthy Hoops was created in 2003 by Keystone Mercy Health Plan, in collaboration with AstraZeneca, and basketball coaches and health organizations. Healthy Hoops has achieved positive health outcomes for participants, including an increase in the use of preventive medications, and a decrease in ER visits and hospitalizations, nocturnal awakenings, and the use of asthma rescue medication. Please visit www.healthyhoopsprogram.com for more information.

About Keystone Mercy Health Plan
Keystone Mercy Health Plan, a healthcare ministry of the Sisters of Mercy in affiliation with Keystone First, Inc., is the largest Medical Assistance managed care organization in Pennsylvania, serving more than 290,000 Medical Assistance recipients. Keystone Mercy's mission is to provide accessible, quality health care services to its members, with a special concern for the poor and disadvantaged. Please visit www.keystonemercy.com for more information.

Glenn Ellis is a Health Advocacy Communications Specialist and author of Which Doctor?: What You Need to Know to be Healthy. Ellis lectures and is an active contributor to the literature nationally and internationally on health related topics, including on the topics of community health, health promotion, and medical ethics. His work for clients includes: guiding leaders and teams from ideas to products as a project director and facilitator, crafting funding initiatives, writing position papers, and providing expert knowledge in public health, cultural competency, and culture in health. Please visit www.glennellis.com for more information.