Making A Difference: An Occasional Series Profiling North Idaho’S Community Leaders Health Crusader Joanna Adams Has Track Record Of Winning Public Health Battles

Hold an apple up to Joanna Adams and she’ll tell you how many servings of fruit and vegetables to eat in one day: five.

Show her an infant car seat and she’ll dissect it as if it’s a frog in a biology lab.

Tell her North Idahoans have an alarmingly high rate of strokes and she’ll slip into superhero garb and attack fat and cholesterol. She takes no prisoners. It’s her job to win.

And she’s too smart to try to do it alone.

“She believes so strongly in what she’s doing,” says Kay Kindig, Panhandle Health District director. “Things you may never have thought much about — Joanna approaches you and starts talking and they become important.”

Adams is the Panhandle Health District’s health education specialist. She’s most effective at rallying the energies of individual groups into one powerful movement.

A few years ago, her target was diet. Adams pulled together dietitians, business leaders and school officials in the Partners in Health coalition.

The group worked so well that Idaho’s risk of stroke dropped and the federal government stopped sending prevention money. The state asked Adams to share her coalition’s secret at a national health conference in 1993.

After she moved into injury prevention, bike rodeos became a common event in the Panhandle. They’re put on by a new coalition that unites law enforcement, firefighters, teachers, doctors and nurses, city officials, parents and businesses.

The group combines forces to teach children bicycle safety, check car seats and push seat-belt use.

“My kids think that’s funny because I used to think I didn’t need a seat belt,” Adams says. “What convinced me to wear one was getting involved in this program and watching what happens to people who don’t wear a belt.”

She was raised on a Potlatch farm in the 1950s, when seat belts were optional, if they existed at all. High school counselors advised her to be an airline stewardess. But Adams did her homework. At 5 feet 2 inches, she was an inch under the height requirement.

“I wanted to go to college anyway,” she says. “I knew the value of a college education.”

The farmer’s daughter was a University of Idaho homecoming queen finalist in 1965 and a home economics and physical education teacher in 1966. She coached the Palouse (Wash.) High School girls basketball team her first year out of college.

Marriage pulled her to Boise. She gave birth to two boys and two girls, began a master’s program at Boise State University and worked in the registrar’s office there.

By 1983, her family was ready for a change. They settled in Coeur d’Alene, and Adams took a job developing membership with the Coeur d’Alene Chamber of Commerce.

“I loved the chamber. The people were so dynamic and exciting. They got things done,” she says. “But my heart’s desire was to get back into nutrition and education.”

She divorced, and she snagged a job counseling impoverished pregnant women and their children to eat better. Classes she taught showed her that North Idaho in general had much to learn about nutrition.

The Panhandle Health District noticed Adams’ gentle approach with the public and asked her to spread AIDS prevention information. She delivered her message to schools and business groups for a year.

Then she attacked cholesterol. Business friends from her days at the chamber allowed Adams to screen their employees at work for high cholesterol. She gave results on the spot and taught them how to reduce their risk of strokes.

Idaho’s cholesterol was so bad in the early 1990s that the state qualified for federal money to fight poor cardiovascular health. That money produced the Idaho Partners in Health program and the ripple-chested Captain Carbo.

“I had fun with that one,” says Adams, whose second husband, John, owns Coeur d’Alene Tractor.

Adams and North Idaho’s coalition spread food guide refrigerator magnets everywhere. The magnets showed how many servings people should eat daily from each of five food groups.

She distributed monthly newsletters on nutrition and low-fat charts so people could calculate the percentage of fat in the packaged food they bought.

She took Captain Carbo, a cape-wearing superhero with a flashy smile, to schools, businesses and stores as a memorable mouthpiece for the healthy eating message. Her youngest son, Peter, often wore the bulky suit.

But the Body Walk was her favorite. Adams organized a huge display of lips, an esophagus, stomach, intestine and nose. Children walked through the body parts while dietitians explained what happened to their food. Kids left the body on a slide through the nose.

Five years into the promotion, Idaho’s cardiovascular health had improved enough that other states were in greater need for the federal money.

“I was really disappointed,” Adams says. “It was a sad day when I had to tell all the partners that we were too successful.”

But another crusade already had begun. North Idaho had received $39,000 from the state Bureau of Health to reduce injuries. Adams was in charge. She immediately gathered groups that work in safety into the North Idaho Injury Prevention Coalition.

The coalition began free classes on child safety-seat installation. Varying seat-belt systems and ages of cars often led to faulty installation. Ninety-six percent of 68 car seats checked in Coeur d’Alene last spring were installed improperly, Adams says.

She learned the nuances of installation in a 32-hour car-seat training session, then persuaded 30 other people in the Panhandle to take the training.

“She’s so enthusiastic about what she does,” says Ramona Mobbs, a Post Falls Fire Protection District prevention specialist who is on the coalition. Mobbs is a certified car-seat technician now and checks out car seats for parents who drop by the Kootenai Fire District station.

Adams’ group gives away bike helmets and 35 car seats every month. It encourages seat-belt use with free breakfasts at Shari’s Coeur d’Alene restaurant.

Adams has had her least success selling the public on seat belts. Usage in the Panhandle dropped from 62 percent in 1996 to 52.1 percent last year. She sighs softly as she studies the statistics. She’ll take up the problem with the coalition, which, she’s convinced, can solve anything.

“She keeps us going with her energy and drive,” says John Kelly, a Coeur d’Alene police officer and coalition member. “Man, it seems like we’ve had so many projects and so many have been successful.”

This sidebar appeared with the story:

DEMONSTRATION

Firefighters, rescue workers and other safety experts will gather at the Silver Lake Mall from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. today with equipment to demonstrate and information to share.

Displays will include fire engines, police cars, a fire boat and ambulance. Idaho Army National Guard will exhibit a tank, and the U.S. Coast Guard will bring a sailboat.

Smokey Bear, Crash Test Dummies, Sparky the fire prevention dog, Ready Fox, Disaster Dog and Good Neighbor Bear will entertain the kids. Everything is free.