This September is the fourth annual, National Preparedness Month a nationwide initiative sponsored by the Department of Homeland Security to encourage Americans to take simple steps to prepare for emergencies. This year, National Preparedness Month focuses on back-to-school planning, business preparedness, multicultural preparedness, and home and family preparedness.

To assist with preparedness planning, LLIS.gov has created the National Preparedness Month resource page to share important information about these issues. In addition, many topic-specific resource pages feature special sections highlighting information related to National Preparedness Month, planning, or community preparedness.

To access the National Preparedness Month page, please log onto LLIS.gov and click on National Preparedness Month under FEATURED TOPICS. LLIS welcomes any thoughts, questions, or suggestions that you may have at nationalprepmonth@llis.dhs.gov.

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/pubs/factsheets/dirlinfs.html
DIRLINE, Directory of Information Resources Online, is the National Library of Medicine’s online database containing location and descriptive information about a wide variety of information resources including organizations, research resources, projects, and databases concerned with health and biomedicine.

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/pubs/factsheets/toxmysteryfs.html
ToxMystery (http://toxmystery.nlm.nih.gov) is the National Library of Medicine’s new interactive learning site, designed to help children age 7 to 10 find clues about toxic substances that can lurk in the home. With lively animations, surprising sound effects and lots of positive reinforcement, ToxMystery provides a fun, game-like experience, while teaching important lessons about potential environmental health hazards.

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/pubs/factsheets/toxseekfs.html
ToxSeek® is a free meta-search engine enabling users to search across diverse biomedical and environmental health resources and provides a method for efficiently locating information resources on topics related to toxicology and environmental health.

Learn more about lead poisoning.

For Statistics, go to NLM’s TOXMAP.

For terminology, go to Understanding Lead Terminology (National Safety Council).

For clinical trials, go to ClinicalTrials.gov: Lead Poisoning (National Institutes of Health).

For frequently asked questions, go to the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry’s (ASTDR) ToxFAQs™ for Lead http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/tfacts13.html.

The primary NIH organization for research on Lead Poisoning is the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.

Health Literacy of America’s Adults:
Results from the 2003 National Assessment of Adult Literacy
When: August 29, 2007
1:30 PM - 3:00 PM Eastern Time
12:30 PM - 2:00 PM Central Time
11:30 AM - 1:00 PM Mountain Time
10:30 AM - 12:00 AM Pacific Time

For more information about this webcast or The National Institute for Literacy,
go to: http://www.nifl.gov.

The National Institute for Literacy has hosted a number of web casts
presenting information, findings and results from the National Assessment of
Adult Literacy (NAAL), for more information on these webcast, please go to:
http://www.nifl.gov/nifl/NAAL2003.html

If you are experiencing problems in DOCLINE, please verify your DOCLINE browser settings.

If settings are correct, please tell NLM or NN/LM SE/A using this Report a Problem form or from Contact Us in DOCLINE.

If reporting a problem with PubMed, please use the “Write to the Help Desk” link at the bottom of PubMed. Their form gathers information that is helpful to them in investigating problem reports.

Developed by the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. The pilot demonstration project was funded by the National Library of Medicine/National Institutes of Health.

The Consumer Health Resource Information Service (CHRIS) Program is based on the concept that churches and other faith-based organizations can play an effective role in eliminating or reducing minority health disparities because of their unique positions in the community. This role is strengthened when faith communities collaborate among themselves and with other local, state, and national community service organizations to disseminate quality health information and provide core health-related services.

The CHRIS initiative is designed to support the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) Healthy People 2010 goals of increasing quality and years of life and eliminating health disparities. The program improves consumer health information access by disseminating consumer health information through churches and other faith-based entities to address identified health issues that disproportionately affect minorities and other underserved populations.

CHRIS addresses health disparities such as HIV/AIDS, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, immunization,cancer, and infant mortality, and can be adapted to address any health issues of concern to any community, large or small.

The Guide’s six sections include:

• PROGRAM MANAGEMENT RESOURCES
• MEDIA MATERIALS
• ASSESSMENT INSTRUMENTS
• SITE SELECTION GUIDELINES AND TEMPLATES
• DOCUMENTATION AND REPORTING GUIDELINES AND FORMS
• EVALUATION INSTRUMENTS

CHRIS Replication Guide
http://orise.orau.gov/healthcomm/files/CHRIS_GUIDE.pdf

CHRIS Tookit
http://orise.orau.gov/healthcomm/files/CHRIS_ToolKit.pdf

As many of you know, MLA and the NN/LM have begun offering a suite of distance education courses using Moodle, an open access course management system similar to Blackboard and WebCT. (see Free Distance Learning Classes from NN/LM, Available in 2007)

In February, the NN/LM SE/A offered our first Moodle version of ¿No Comprende?: Spanish Health Information for English Speaking Librarians. The class went very well, with no technical problems or glitches for the participants or instructor. Following up on this success, we are happy to announce the next online session of ¿No Comprende? will take place August 20-31, 2007. If you are interested in taking this class, but cannot get out of your office, the online version using Moodle is the answer. You will need access to the internet and approximately 12 hours to learn and explore Spanish health information resources. This class is completely asynchronous, so you can do the work when it’s most convenient for you.

Happy Moodling!

To register, contact Sheila Snow-Croft via email: ssnowcro@hshsl.umaryland.edu

This monthly National Institutes of Health newsletter brings you practical health news and tips based on the latest NIH research. Augusts’ is now online at http://newsinhealth.nih.gov/. Please pass the word on to your colleagues about The NIH News in Health. NIH is happy to send a limited number of print copies free of charge to any library. In this issue:

Feature Stories:

• Dealing With Trauma — Frightening Events Can Have Lasting Effects
• Figuring Out Fibromyalgia — Perplexing Pain and Fatigue

Health Capsules:

• Brain Imaging Reveals Joys of Giving
• Alcoholism Subtypes Identified

Featured Web Site:

• Breath of Life — The medical and human history of asthma

New version of TOXMAP (http://toxmap.nlm.nih.gov) to be released next week, offering:

More search options: Users will be able to search TOXMAP by CAS/RN, TRI˚ facility name/ID, release medium, release year ranges, release amount, Superfund NPL site name/ID, and Hazard Ranking System (HRS) score.

Geographic region limits: users will be able to create their own geographic region, or select a pre-defined region from a menu. Setting a geographic region limits search results to those inside the specified region. Regions can be saved for future access.

Regional TRI summary tables: users will be able to view summary (aggregate) TRI release amounts for their geographic region.

Updated and expanded glossary and FAQs.