CLEVELAND — Twin Doctors of Pharmacy Jessica and Jennifer Macklin (PharmD) are doing their part to decrease the risk of cardiovascular diseases in Northeast Ohio families.
The sisters are cofounders of Hands-on Health, which offers mobile health services and educates families on how to live longer and healthier through nutrition and heart health.
"We're on a mission to make sure that families together are finding cool ways to learn about heart health, but also be able to implement it for now and for their futures," Jessica said.
The sisters travel throughout Northeast Ohio to fill healthcare gaps for people of all backgrounds.
"We are basically meeting our community where they are already and building that trust with them. We try to cultivate a very culturally competent staff and a group of medical professionals and volunteers," Jessica said.
Their motivation comes from their personal connection to heart disease.
"We are first-generation college graduates, and unfortunately, our grandparents passed away at an early age due to complications of heart disease, diabetes, and high blood pressure. So, they never got a chance to see us get through college and make it all the way to the doctorate level. We realize, as we practice across the country that it is not just our family that is going through this heartache," Jennifer said.
According to Jennifer, every 36 seconds, someone dies from a heart-related event, and the sisters hope they can help future generations avoid heartbreak through their health science lab and healthy heart program.
"The health science lab program is a cool project that we do in the schools where students dress the part, they see themselves as scientists, so they wear their white coat, they're wearing goggles and gloves, and they're learning about nutrition through different stem projects. They're also learning about physical activity to keep their bodies in motion, but also the mental capacity to approach each day," Jessica said.
The twins offer free blood pressure and glucose screenings through their Healthy Heart program.
"We just try to find out the root of their problem, and family wise, each family that we come across and try to take that knowledge that we have and report it back to make Cleveland, especially our Black communities, healthier," Jessica said.
One of their most popular events is their family date day, where families come together to learn how to make healthy meals.
"We're at churches, are at the schools and we're learning together about nutrition and portion control and how to read food labels. That just sets everyone else up for the future so that they can decrease their risk of having cardiovascular diseases," Jennifer said.
Dominique Bethly, a mother of three, says these kinds of events are important because most kids are not eating healthy enough, which can play a part in a child's mental health.
"This teaches our kids and also their parents how important it is to read the labels, how important it is to download apps that help you shop correctly, and how important it is to exercise and do things as a family to promote positivity and build our kids up," Bethly said.
The sisters said it is very common for them to discover health issues with participants who come for free screenings.
"There was a gentleman that had a blood pressure of about 193 over 110, which he is pretty at risk for a stroke. He said that the free burger that had brought him to our event saved his life. He changed his lifestyle, and he's incorporating turkey burgers versus beef, and his family is eating turkey burgers now. He's established primary care, something he didn't have before he came into our program," Jessica said.
Most importantly, they want people to understand that this disease can impact people of all ages.
"This is not a grandparent's disease, and there's so many people that are young teenagers, young parents that are on a fast pathway to have heart disease. Our mission is just to make sure that people are having fun, they are aware, and you can make informed decisions yourself to take control of your heart health," Jennifer said.
The twins want to create a toolkit that provides other healthcare students the tools to immerse themselves in the community the way that they do and continue their grandparents' legacies.
"If our grandparents were alive, I think that they would be happy to know that from their legacy. We've cultivated an organization like hands on health to help a lot of people kind of avoid that loss that we had," Jessica said.
