James Russell is the current president of the Durham Council for the Blind. He has also participated in Bull City Strong’s health literacy classes and workshops since their beginning in 2021. Although Mr. Russell is not a Community Health Promoter, he has experienced a change in the way he advocates for himself with his doctors and even his pharmacy.
Aging Well Durham spoke with him over the phone to learn about Bull City Strong (BCS) has improved his health literacy, his understanding of community health and how both intersect with his work with the Council for the Blind.
Mr Russell: When we first started in 2021 we were of course working on understanding COVID, but more recently we learned about other health issues like housing access. It’s been informative.
We have speakers. The one more recently made me a little more accountable. We had quizzes and we had assignments. The program lasted about a month, and when we finished, I learned about HIV. I wish I had this sort of knowledge when I was younger.
Has it changed the way you interact with your health care providers?
Yes, I started asking questions. Between the pharmacists and the doctors, I’ll ask questions. I’ve learned that we have to stay on top of things, because sometimes there can be miscommunication. I would say the classes made me more mindful.
Because of my lack of vision, I have to really listen, really remember everything the doctors are saying. Good communication is extremely important. Most recently I was trying to get my insulin filled, and I was on my last pen, so I called the pharmacist. And there was an issue. The pharmacist told me to call my doctor about the prescription, so I did.
It was good that I did. Recently a certain pharmacy kept running out of my prescription, so I went to a different pharmacy. But the technician at the doctor’s office pulled up the previous drug store, and she would’ve sent it there. So good communication is crucial.
It sounds like you have a strong sense of self-advocacy. It sounds like Bull City Strong’s program made a difference.
I like to think I do. It did (make a difference). It reinforced how much we’re supposed to be participants in our own healthcare. Like if there’s something you don’t know, you should ask. I get that out of it.
A lot of things that BCS said, that I learned, was about specific health issues that I wouldn’t have known as much about. Like HIV. I know three or four people with HIV. I talk with them about it. Some of the things they’ve told me, I also heard in the class.
I know not to be scared of somebody because they have HIV. We talked about how you could catch it, because some people are afraid to shake hands with people with HIV. I know better than that.
Does your work with the Durham Council for the Blind intersect with the things you’ve learned at BCS?
We’ll always bring back information to the Council. I always give them an overview of what we talked about at Bull City Strong. We need to know about more than one disability. One thing does affect the other.
The North Carolina Council for the Blind’s conference is always at the end of September, and there are speakers there. There’s a lady who comes every year and talks about diabetes. People come there and talk about other health issues than blindness. A lot of people are blind or vision impaired because they are diabetic.
The president of the Council chooses a focus. The last president looked at crosswalks and public spaces. My focus is interacting with sighted people and letting them know about us: what we can see, how they can help us, and we encourage questions.
At the end of the day, people who are blind do the same things everybody else does.
Is there anything else you would like to leave us with about Bull City Strong?
I’m proud of my participation in Bull City Strong. I love this city. I really do. And everything we learned about health, most of it was in this city. There needs to be more done. We did a map to determine where health literacy was bad and where it was worse.
I’m not a Community Health Promoter, but I understand the meaning of that now. And I think that will help parts of the city that have lower levels of health literacy. The Promoters can let people know about resources they may not know about.
Thinking about my people, Black people, some don’t want to seek help. Some don’t have access to healthcare. And some people may not even know how to go about it, so that’s where the Community Health Promoters come in.
