The HHS Office on Women’s Health (OWH) launched its new new heart attack awareness campaign targeting Spanish-speaking women age 50 and over: “Haga La Llamada, ¡No Pierda Tiempo!” The new Spanish-language campaign aims to educate and empower Spanish-speaking women to call 911 when they experience any of the seven symptoms of a heart attack, and to do the same for their mothers, sisters, and friends. “Haga La Llamada, ¡No Pierda Tiempo!” builds on OWH’s successful “Make the Call, Don’t Miss a Beat” campaign, that began in 2011.

This February, American Heart Month, OWH urges women to make the call to 911 immediately if they experience any one or more of the following seven symptoms:

• Chest pain, discomfort, pressure or squeezing
• Shortness of breath
• Nausea
• Light-headedness or sudden dizziness
• Unusual upper body pain or discomfort in one or both arms, back, shoulder, neck, jaw, or upper part of the stomach
• Unusual fatigue
• Cold sweats

NIH News in Health is a monthly newsletter from the National Institutes of Health, part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The practical health information in NIH News in Health is reviewed by NIH’s medical experts and based on research conducted either by NIH’s own scientists or by our grantees at universities and medical schools around the country. The February 2013 issue features:

• Shape Your Family’s Habits: Helping Kids Make Healthy Choices
• Chew on This: Healthy Teeth for Baby and Beyond
• Therapy Shows Promise for Peanut Allergy
• Relaxation Techniques for Stress?
• Featured Website: Check Up on Your Bones

NIH News in Health is available online in HTML and PDF formats, and free print copies are available for display in offices, libraries, or clinics. Visit the NIH News in Health Facebook page to suggest topics you would like to see covered, or to start a discussion about how you use the newsletter!

The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) Disaster Technical Assistance Center (DTAC) has just announced release of the Disaster Response Template Toolkit, a new installment in the Disaster Behavioral Health Information Series. It contains a comprehensive collection of online resources and materials, as well as editable templates that can be easily tailored to meet the needs of any disaster response program.

The Printed Materials section contains customizable public education materials for use by disaster behavioral health response programs to provide outreach, psycho-education, and recovery news for disaster survivors. These materials, geared toward the general public, provide information about common disaster reactions and ways to cope. The Messaging through Other Media section contains tips for writing television, radio, and newspaper public service announcements (PSAs), as well as samples of print and radio PSAs. There are also links and examples of disaster response program websites, social networking pages, and blogs.

Within each section of this toolkit, “do it yourself” templates are provided in various formats, with space provided for each program to incorporate its own logo or contact information. You will find templates for the following products:

• Brochures for adults, older adults, or children, about common disaster responses and ways of coping;
• Door hangers with common signs of disaster stress, ways to reduce stress, and common reactions to trigger events, such as the holidays;
• Editable tip sheets with information on managing stress, coping with disaster anniversaries, and helping children cope with the disaster;
• Newsletters, wallet cards, and postcards, with broad messaging and room to add your program’s contact information.

It is hoped that the Disaster Response Template Toolkit will be a helpful resource for the disaster response programs in your institution!

The National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases (NIAMS), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), has launched a multicultural outreach initiative to raise awareness about the availability of NIH and other Federal resources to help people with diseases and conditions of the bones, joints, muscles and skin. NIAMS is a reliable resource for patients, family members, health professionals, and others in search of meaningful, relevant and science-based health information about bones, joints, muscles and skin. The initiative also aims to emphasize research as the foundation for progress, and to support and involve organizations in multicultural outreach. Through the Initiative, NIAMS is working with national partners to develop and disseminate culturally appropriate messages and materials in the areas of bones, joints, muscles and skin for racial, ethnic and underserved populations.

NIAMS has created a series of health planners—titled A Year of Health—that provide health tips and information about staying healthy and managing conditions of the bones, joints, muscles and skin. The four planners, created with community input, are tailored for the following audiences:

• African Americans
• American Indians/Alaska Natives/Native Hawaiians
• Asian Americans/Pacific Islanders
• Hispanics/Latinos (bilingual planner)

Additionally, to support your library’s outreach efforts, NIAMS has created an electronic toolkit to help you and your organization prepare your planner distribution strategies. The materials include:

• Resources for conducting outreach
• Electronic versions of the four health planners
• A sticker template to customize the planners with your organization’s contact information
• An image gallery of multicultural photos to tailor materials for your organization’s community

To order A Year of Health planners, call the NIAMS toll free at 877–226–4267 (TTY: 301–565–2966) or email at NIAMSinfo@mail.nih.gov. Orders are limited to addresses in the United States and its territories.

Check out the January issue of NIH News in Health, the monthly newsletter bringing you practical health news and tips based on the latest NIH research. In this edition:

Beat the Winter Blues: Shedding Light on Seasonal Sadness
As the days get shorter, many people find themselves feeling sad. What is it about the darkening days that can leave us down in the dumps? And what can we do about it?

Radon Risk: Its Perils Can be Prevented
If you’re buying a new home, you may need to test it for radon. Radon is a colorless, odorless, radioactive gas. You might not be able to see or smell radon, but it can still harm you—slowly, and in ways that you can’t detect.

Health Capsules:

• Trust Rises With Age
• Salivary Gland Gene Therapy Shows Promise
• Featured Website: Family Checkup: Positive Parenting Prevents Drug Abuse

MedlinePlus.gov offers over 900 Health Topic pages covering a myriad of diseases, illnesses, health conditions, and wellness issues. Millions of users visited MedlinePlus Health Topic pages in 2012. Which were the most visited? Take a look at the list of “Top 10 Most Visited MedlinePlus Health Topics of 2012″:

• High Blood Pressure
• Exercise and Physical Fitness
• Diabetes
• Diabetic Diet
• COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease)
• Skin Conditions
• Autoimmune Diseases
• Herpes Simplex
• Herniated Disk
• Heart Diseases

The December 2012 issue of NIH News in Health is now available online! NIH News in Health is a monthly newsletter from the National Institutes of Health, part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) plays a major role in finding better ways to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent diseases. The practical health information in NIH News in Health is reviewed by NIH’s medical experts and based on research conducted either by NIH’s own scientists or by our grantees at universities and medical schools around the country. This issue features:

• Don’t Just Sit There! Move for Your Health
• Counting Carbs? Understanding Glycemic Index and Glycemic Load
• Technique May Improve COPD Detection
• Videos Highlight Behavior and Health
• NIH Director’s Blog

NIH News in Health is available online in both HTML and PDF formats. Print copies are available free of charge for offices, clinics, community centers and libraries within the U.S.

The National Library of Medicine has released Discovering the Connection: Your Environment, Your Health, an after school science club curriculum for middle school students. The curriculum combines research on the Tox Town web site with hands-on experiments and communication, including social action activities. The objective is to introduce middle school students to environmental health issues in their everyday life, emphasizing the relevance of science to informed citizenship. The curriculum lessons can also be used to support the existing middle school science curriculum, as well as to reinforce the science/society connection in the social science or language arts classroom.

The curriculum was developed as a collaboration between the NLM, the University of Maryland College of Education, and an inter-disciplinary group of middle school teachers. It is based on National Science Education Standards, and is grounded in a problem-based learning approach that promotes in-depth understanding and critical thinking. The curriculum contains six units; each of which introduces one environmental health topic, and includes three to four 50-60 minute lessons. The units include: 1) Water Quality; 2) Air Quality; 3) Chemicals in Your Home; 4) Food Safety; 5) Runoff, Impervious Surfaces, and Smart Development; and 6) The Great Debate: Bottled Water vs. Tap Water in Our School.

The Fall 2012 issue of NIH MedlinePlus the Magazine is available online. NIH MedlinePlus the Magazine is the free, trusted consumer guide to the vast array of authoritative online health and medical information at MedlinePlus. Published four times a year, the magazine showcases the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) latest medical research and healthcare information. In this issue:

• NIH Research: Dr. Anthony Fauci—Turning the Tide Against AIDS
• Steady Advances in Cystic Fibrosis Research
• Steady Advances Against Cystic Fibrosis
• Cystic Fibrosis: Symptoms, Diagnosis, Treatment
• Living with CF
• Cystic Fibrosis Research
• Diabetes Complications
• Learning A Healthier Way to Live
• Preventing and Managing Diabetes Complications
• Personal Stories
• Tailoring Diabetes Treatment to the Patient
• Time to Get Your Annual Flu Shot
• Electronic Health Records: Permanent, Private and Informative
• Back to School, the Healthy Way
• Check-Ups and Immunizations
• Exercise and Sleep
• 10 Healthy Breakfast and Lunch Tips
• Finding Answers In A Beauty Shop

NIH MedlinePlus the Magazine is freely available both online and in print.

The National Library of Medicine (NLM) is pleased to announce the release of a new educational resource, an afterschool science club curriculum for middle school students, entitled Discovering the Connection: Your Environment, Your Health. Lessons and activities of the curriculum combine research on the Tox Town website with hands-on experiments and communication and social action activities. The objective is to introduce middle school students to environmental health issues in their everyday life, emphasizing the relevance of science to informed citizenship.

The curriculum was developed as collaboration between NLM, University of Maryland College of Education, and an inter-disciplinary group of middle school teachers. It is based on National Science Education Standards and is grounded in problem-based learning approach that promotes in-depth understanding and critical thinking.

The curriculum sequence contains six units that each introduce one environmental health topic and include three to four 50-60 minute lessons. The units are: 1) Water Quality, 2) Air Quality, 3) Chemicals in Your Home, 4) Food Safety, 5) Runoff, Impervious Surfaces, and Smart Development, and 6) The Great Debate: Bottled Water vs. Tap Water in Our School. While the curriculum is for an afterschool club, its lessons can also be used to support the existing middle school science curriculum, as well as to reinforce the science/society connection in the social science or language arts classroom.

To stay up to date with all NLM’s K-12 resources subscribe to the K12NLMRESOURCES listserv.