The Pitt Graduate School of Public Health’s (GSPH) Center for Minority Health (CMH) has joined forces with WPXI-TV, Channel 11, in a year-long partnership that will produce health-education program specials and vignettes designed to raise awareness of what works to prevent type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure in Pittsburgh’s African American community.

The series will kick off with “For the Health of It: A WPXI-TV Channel 11, African American History Special,” which will air at 7:30 p.m. Feb. 25 and be rebroadcast at 3 and 7 p.m. Feb. 26 on PCNC. It will address health issues that confront today’s African American community and provide tips for improved health and the elimination of health disparities.

The program will air highlights of an April 5, 2005, appearance at Reizenstein Middle School in Pittsburgh by entertainer Bill Cosby, who brought his message of health promotion and parenting within the African American community when he accepted GSPH’s Porter Prize.

In addition, the program will highlight the Healthy Black Family Project, an innovative community-based program of the CMH. The project is designed to help African Americans take control of their health by translating medical and public health science into practical steps people can take to prevent diabetes and heart disease.

With headquarters at the Kingsley Association in East Liberty and in Hosanna House in Wilkinsburg, the project provides free access to physical activity, nutrition education, stress management, genetic family health histories, and social support.

The program, hosted by Channel 11 News reporter Kimberly Easton with Vince Sims and Yolanda Hawkins, also will look back at the Freedom House Ambulance Service, a groundbreaking program started in Pittsburgh’s Hill District in 1967. The Freedom House Project was the first ambulance service to provide care for patients before they reached the hospital and was the forerunner of the modern emergency medical care system.

The CMH was established in 1994 with a grant from the Richard King Mellon Foundation and is committed to taking a leading role in the nation’s prevention agenda to eliminate racial and ethnic health disparities as described in Healthy People 2010, a U.S. Department of Health and Human Services initiative.