The NN/LM SCR is pleased to announce the recipient of the Year 1 Mobile Applications Project (MAP) Award.

The purpose of the MAP award is to provide an opportunity for Network members to provide access to health information utilizing mobile technologies.

Yan Hong, Ph.D.
School of Rural Public Health, Texas A & M Health Science Center, College Station, TX
Project: Disseminate ICANFIT A mobile application to promote physical activity and access to health

Description: This project will be built upon an ongoing effort to develop ICANFIT, a web and mobile application designed specifically for seniors with the following features: 1) the ability to search local physical activity resources with preset personal preferences, 2) individual goal-setting and physical activity progress tracking, 3) offering social support through virtual networking, 4) sending senior-friendly regular (daily/weekly) healthy tips, and 5) providing easy access to health information. The goal of the project is to disseminate ICANFIT to seniors in rural central Texas.

For a full list of funded projects from the NN/LM SCR please visit: http://nnlm.gov/scr/funding/scrfunded.html

Please join us in congratulating Dr. Hong and the School of Rural Public Health, Texas A & M Health Science Center!

World AIDS Day on December 1 brings together people from around the world to raise awareness about HIV/AIDS and demonstrate international solidarity in the face of the pandemic. The day is an opportunity for public and private partners to spread awareness about the status of the pandemic and encourage progress in HIV/AIDS prevention, treatment and care in high prevalence countries and around the world.

In advance of World AIDS Day 2011, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton spoke about her goal for an “AIDS Free Generation” – a goal which aligns with the National HIV/AIDS Strategy. Visit PEPFAR [http://www.pepfar.gov ] to view the November 8 speech.

AIDSinfo joins people and organizations worldwide in observing World AIDS Day. In keeping with this year’s theme—Leading with Science, Uniting for Action—AIDSinfo is pleased to release the redesigned AIDSinfo and infoSIDA (Spanish version) Web sites. These sites (services of the US Department of Health and Human Services and managed by the National Library of Medicine) offer federally-approved information on HIV research and treatment, including medical practice guidelines and treatment and prevention research studies, to health care providers, researchers, people affected by HIV/AIDS, and the general public.

Looking for more ways  take action around World AIDS Day? Here are a few simple, powerful, and engaging ways:

• Join the Facing AIDS Initiative: http://facing.aids.gov/
• Locate HIV Testing and Other HIV Services: http://aids.gov/locator/
• Posters and Tools: http://1.usa.gov/eibPZG
• Tweet Official hashtag #WAD2011

Join us Wednesday, November 16, 2011, from 10:30 a.m. – 11:30 a.m.(CT), for NN/LM SCR’s monthly web conference, SCR CONNECTions. This month’s webinar is: Health Information Resources for Refugee Populations.

The presentation will provide an introduction to health information resources uniquely suited for refugee populations. Background information on refugees in the U.S. and their unique health issues will also be presented.

Webinars are conducted via the Adobe Connect web meeting system. Join the webinar using the following URL: https://webmeeting.nih.gov/scr/. Once you enter the online meeting room, follow the instructions on the screen to have the system call you on your telephone.

Test your connection before joining with Adobe using the following URL: https://admin.acrobat.com/common/help/en/support/meeting_test.htm.

This webinar is available for 1 hour of Medical Library Association Continuing Education credit. If you cannot attend this webinar, it will be recorded and archived for viewing at a later date.

Health Literacy has been defined as “the degree to which individuals have the capacity to obtain, process, and understand basic health information and services needed to make appropriate health decisions” (Healthy People 2010). Yet, millions of Americans have difficulty with reading and understanding basic health information, such as interpreting over-the-counter drug labels and reading a chart to determine a child’s immunization schedule.

Founded as a grassroots initiative in 1999 by Helen Osborne, Health Literacy Month is a time for organizations and individuals worldwide to promote the importance of understandable health information. Since its beginning, there have been hundreds of awareness-raising events held across the U.S. and around the world.

To spotlight this observance, 2011 marks the 2nd Annual Health Literacy Month Series on the blog Engaging the Patient.  This year, the series features a roster of national experts (including academics, clinicians and noted writers) to blog their own takes on the challenges of health literacy in America. New content will be posted every weekday during October.

More about Health Literacy and Health Literacy month can be found at:

http://www.healthliteracymonth.org/ ,

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/healthliteracy.html ,

 http://nnlm.gov/outreach/consumer/hlthlit.html, and

http://www.cdc.gov/healthliteracy/ .

Several government agencies (FEMA, Citizen Corps, and others) as well as the American Public Health Association (APHA) have joined to promote the month of September 2011 as a time to remember the events of September 11, 2001 and also to encourage all Americans to prepare themselves, their families and their communities for all disasters and hazards, including infectious disease, natural disasters and other emergencies. Each of the resources below has additional information on various aspects of the promotion.

For more information on becoming a National Preparedness Month Coalition member or information on planning an event, see: http://community.fema.gov/connect.ti/READYNPM . Information on the Ready campaign is available in several languages.

The APHA designates September 21, 2011 as Get Ready Day and has resources on planning or participating in an event, including a video contest for K – 12 students. 

America’s Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has released Remembering 9/11 and Anthrax: Public Health’s Vital Role in National Defense, a report featuring more than 30 firsthand accounts of public health professionals who were directly involved in the response to the September 11, 2001 and anthrax tragedies. A summary of how public health preparedness has evolved in the past 10 years is also included in the report.

If you have ever wished that you could locate the perfect journal article to support one of the Healthy People 2020 objectives, there may be a solution! The SEQs (Structured Evidence Queries) on the PHPartners website were created with this in mind. The purpose of these SEQs is to make information and evidence-based strategies related to the Healthy People 2020 objectives easier to find. The National Library of Medicine has worked with subject experts to develop pre-formulated search strategies for selected Healthy People 2020 subject areas.

These one-click strategies search PubMed, a database of the National Library of Medicine that provides access to over 21 million citations from MEDLINE and additional life science journals. PubMed includes links to many sites providing full text articles and other related resources.

The “pre-formulated” search strategies can save time and take the guess work out of choosing the right search terms. The terms and strategies for these Healthy People objectives were carefully chosen and constructed in order to return the greatest number references relevant to your research. The number of subject areas for which SEQs exist continues to grow, and currently covers fifteen Healthy People 2020 subject areas, including: Diabetes, Mental Health and Mental Disorders, Tobacco Use, and Vision.

Check it out by clicking on the SEQ box, prominently featured on the upper right of the PHPartners website.

The American Public Health Association (APHA) has launched Public Health Newswire, APHA’s newest resource that provides the latest news of public health events, trends and advocacy.

The site features timely, relevant information from across the public health community through news roundups and commentary from APHA members, Affiliates and partners as well as original reporting of public health events and advocacy efforts around the country. The site also features the latest research from the scientific community.

Public Health Newswire is freely accessible at www.publichealthnewswire.org . Email subscription and RSS feed are also available.

Chemical emergencies are high risk events that require first responders to quickly make a series of complex decisions in order to minimize the risk of injury to their patients and themselves. The tools in Chemical Hazards Emergency Medical Management (CHEMM) provide a comprehensive resource to help responders make safer decisions and provide them with the right information when it is needed most. CHEMM enables first responders & other healthcare providers and planners to plan for, respond to, recover from, and mitigate the effects of mass-casualty incidents involving accidental or terrorist chemical releases. CHEMM is available online at http://chemm.nlm.nih.gov/.

As a web-based resource, CHEMM can be downloaded in advance, so that it would be available during an event if the Internet is not accessible. It provides evidence-based information and guidance on a wide variety of topics, including quick chemical identification, acute patient care guidelines, and initial event activities.

CHEMM is the result of collaborative efforts between the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR) – Office of Preparedness and Emergency Operations (OPEO), and the National Library of Medicine – Division of Specialized Information Services (NLM\SIS), as well as many medical, emergency response, toxicology, industrial hygiene, and other experts.

An NIH-funded network of researchers will evaluate potential harmful effects of the Deepwater Horizon disaster on reproduction and birth outcomes, the cardiorespiratory system, and behavior and mental health. The network of community and university partnerships, under the leadership of NIH’s National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), will conduct research to evaluate the level of potentially harmful contaminants in air, water, and seafood, and assess their relationship to health outcomes.

The five-year, $25.2 million program will support population-based and laboratory research at Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center New Orleans; Tulane University, New Orleans; the University of Florida, Gainesville; and The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston. In contrast to NIEHS’ Gulf Long-term Follow-up Study, known as the GuLF Study, which is focused on the oil spill cleanup workers and volunteers, this new research will concentrate on the range of acute and long-term health effects to the general public.

As an integrated network, these four institutions will collaborate on approaches and share results to better understand the interplay and effects of multiple stressors on human health. The universities will partner with more than a dozen community organizations to incorporate local concerns and more effectively communicate research findings.

In addition to sharing data and research results, each of the four institutions will implement a community resilience project, which seeks to better understand how local populations respond to and recover from disasters. Through their partnerships with community-based organizations, researchers will assess how culture, social networks, and other determinants may enhance pre-event preparedness and post-event recovery.

For the complete press release, please see http://www.nih.gov/news/health/jul2011/niehs-07.htm

[Photo credit: http://estuaries.gov ]

Are you a librarian? Do you work in public health? If so, you should consider attending the American Public Health Association (APHA) Annual Meeting this year in Washington, DC from October 29 – November 2, 2011. This year’s theme is Healthy Communities Promote Healthy Minds & Bodies.

This should be a particularly great year to attend as a librarian, since librarians do a lot of important community work. Our public health impact can be seen both directly through health literacy projects and outreach as well as indirectly through education of future nurses, doctors, and public health workers. And, there is funding available through the Sewell Fund to help subsidize costs of attendance at the meeting!

What can you expect from attending APHA? Librarian attendees from the past 10 years report a wide variety of outcomes from attending the meeting. Outcomes range from being written into grants; having parts of their salaries paid by other departments; being asked to give presentations at local, state, national, and international meetings; being asked to become regular faculty members in schools of public health; and in general earning the respect of their public health colleagues.

Please visit the website (http://www.phha.mlanet.org/blog/activities/sewell-stipend/) to learn the full details of the Sewell Stipend and download an application today! The deadline for applications is Friday July 29, 2011!

If you have any questions, please contact Joey Nicholson directly at Joseph.Nicholson@nyumc.orgor or any one of the committee members listed on the website.