Healthline

HEALTH SCREENINGS and expert advice will be available at the fifth annual African-American Health Forum at Bayfront Medical Center on Saturday.

The forum is at the hospital's Sheen Conference Center, 701 Sixth St. S, in St. Petersburg.

Registration opens at 8 a.m., with the educational portion scheduled 9 a.m. to noon. There will be free screenings for blood pressure, cholesterol, sickle cell, vision and other health concerns as well as flu and pneumonia vaccinations.

Family activities are noon to 2 p.m. and include entertainment and food.

African-Americans have the shortest life span of any group in the country.

The health forum is sponsored by Bayfront, the American Cancer Society, the St. Petersburg Chapter of Black Nurses Association, Weekly Challenger, WRXB Radio and others.

For information, please call (727) 893-6912.

IN THE "SOME THINGS NEVER CHANGE" category, a survey of 15- to 17-year-olds found that teenagers' alcohol and drug use are closely linked to sexual risk-taking. Almost 85 percent said that their peers drink or use drugs at least "sometimes" before having sex, and 40 percent said it happens a lot.

The dual pressure of making choices about intoxicants and sexual activity is confusing, the teenagers said.

Alcohol and drug use can lead to earlier sexual initiation, unprotected sex and multiple partners, according to the 2002 survey by Kaiser Family Foundation. Those behaviors put teens at risk for pregnancy, AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases, and even sexual violence.

Teen sexual activity has declined in the past decade, with fewer than half of students from ninth to 12th grade saying they've had sexual intercourse. But among those who are sexually active, one-fourth to one-third report that alcohol or drugs were part of their most recent sexual encounter, the foundation reports.

MAYBE YOU READ about the recent Yale study suggesting that women suffering from heart failure who take digoxin are slightly more likely to die than women who do not take the drug.

Now some cardiologists are saying the study does not establish that digoxin -- based on the plant extract digitalis and taken by tens of millions of patients -- is harmful to women.

"I think the damage of withholding the drug from half of our patients would be much more profound" than continuing its careful use, said Dr. William Boden, director of the division of cardiology at Hartford Hospital.

-- Times staff writer Susan Aschoff and Times wires contributed to this report.

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