Food Health Organizations Social Issue 

Athens organizations combat food insecurity with healthier options

ATHENS-CLARKE COUNTY –– According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 34 percent of Athens-Clarke County residents are living in poverty, resulting in many families lacking access to nutritious and affordable food options. Living in poverty doesn’t imply food insecurity, though, as poverty is measured using an annual income threshold, whereas food insecurity is measured based on reliable access to food. While Athens-Clarke County has a poverty rate of over 30 percent, 22 percent of Athens residents are food insecure, according to 2019 County Health Rankings. Local food provision organizations such as Food2Kids,…

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Community Health News Organizations 

ACCPD works to improve mental health response procedures

Story written and produced by: Amy Scott, Alexandria Ellison and Ashlyn Webb ATHENS, Ga. — Athens-Clarke County Police linked approximately 140 citizens back to mental health resources in 2018, continuing their 2016 initiative to lower the incarceration rate of the mentally ill. This is due in part by the ACCPD’s 2016 mental health collaboration and Georgia’s Crisis Intervention Team training.The mental health collaboration is a partnership between ACCPD, the Clarke County Sheriff’s Office, Advantage Behavioral Health and UGA’s Fanning Institute. The collaboration was created to “examine policies, enhance interdepartmental communications,…

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Environment Health News 

Athens Set to Become Wetter, Hotter, Experts Say

ATHENS, Ga. — Athens climate is becoming more extreme, with hotter and wetter days ahead in response to human-induced climate change, according to researchers. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported that Athens experienced its highest rainfall average in 2018 in the last 20 years. Rain averaged almost 70 inches in 2018 compared to the 46-inch rainfall average from 1981 to 2010. These aren’t the only expected weather changes.  “The latest research that we have on what should happen in the southeastern United States, including Athens, is that we will…

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Athens health scores reflect more than food quality

ATHENS, Ga. — Local restaurant health scores don’t only reflect food quality and kitchen cleanliness, a fact that restaurant owners and managers alike wish the public knew more about. According to the Georgia Department of Public Health, health inspection violations fall into two categories: risk factor violations, such as proper cooking temperatures, and good retail practice violations, such as building infrastructure. “It’s really not the score itself. It’s the violations. You can have multiple good retail practice violations that can get somebody into a B score, but overall they may…

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Experts: Five Minutes of Meditation Per Day Enough

ATHENS, Ga- Those who practice daily meditation say they reap the benefit of having fewer stressful days, even with just a couple of minutes of daily dedication.   Becky Smith, the owner of Above Barre Athens, started incorporating a few minutes of meditation into the barre classes at her studios to help gym-goers de-stress. For about two to five minutes at the end of class, women are encouraged to meditate and clear their minds. “We have such busy lives. It’s just good to have those few moments to yourself,” Smith says. Above…

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Community Health News Organizations Social Issue 

Campus Kitchen Provides Thousands of Meals for Food Insecure Households

ATHENS, Ga. – Campus Kitchen at the University of Georgia distributed 25,000 pounds of food to food insecure households and food banks around Athens last year, according to the program’s website. The organization recovered more than 43,000 pounds of food from local grocery stores and gardens, such as UGArden, which they used to provide weekly nutritious meals for their clients and then redistributed unused food to related programs in the area. “Our model is built on creative food sourcing,” said Brad Turner, the program coordinator for the organization at UGA’s Office of Service…

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Athens Tattoo Artist Makes Scars Disappear

ATHENS, Ga. – Ron Hendon, a tattoo artist from Athens, Georgia, removed over 40,000 scars in almost 30 years using his artistic ability and decades of tattoo expertise for scar removal therapy. Hendon’s scar removal  involves irritation of the scar tissue using tattoo needles. One of its aspects is paramedical micro-pigmentation, a method of cosmetically covering scars. Hendon developed these techniques by accident when a client came in with a large scar on her breast after a domestic dispute. “When the same client came in for a touch up of her floral tattoo,…

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Business Education Health 

Athens Students Succumb to Social Anxiety Through Technology

ATHENS, Ga. — According to a short survey carried out by the authors of this article, students in Athens have fallen victim to the effects of social media, which have manifested through the emerging prevalence of technological dependency within the millennial generation. Out of 73 surveyed students at the University of Georgia, 90.41 percent of participants admitted to sleeping with their phone next to their bed. A staggering 76.71 percent felt that technology had taken hold of their lives. The above image depicts two pieces of data collected from 73…

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UGA Professors Analyze Trends and Causes Behind Opioid Epidemic

  ATHENS, GEORGIA — University of Georgia (UGA) professors Randall Tackett,Jayani Jayawardhana, and Matthew Perri are researching causes and trends behind the opioid epidemic in northeast Georgia. Although the three professors are conducting separate studies, they all are investigating the causes behind the rising use of opioids on UGA’s campus and northeast Georgia. Professor Randall Tackett, a pharmacy professor at UGA, studies abused drugs. He deals with students on UGA’s campus who struggle with addiction to opioids and runs programs in school systems to help with addiction. He uses his studies to…

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Abuse Community Health Social Issue 

Seventeen Cases of Dating Violence Reported at UGA in 2016

  ATHENS, GEORGIA – According to the University of Georgia’s annual Safe and Secure report there were seventeen reported cases of abusive relationships from university members in 2016. Ashley Dykes, a former text-line manager at Project Safe, a nonprofit organization aimed at working to end unhealthy relationships, said dating violence is a phrase used to explain the physical or emotional abusive that can arise out of the untraditional styles of modern dating. “Teenagers and younger kids use different words now with ‘hooking up,’ ‘talking to,’ [and] ‘going out with,’ so…

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