Staying Well Connecteds

Staying Well. Connected.

Health.data.gov: there’s gold in them there data

Data.gov opened in May 2009 as an important new open government initiative, offering “to increase public access to high value, machine readable datasets generated by the Executive Branch of the Federal Government.”

This week, Todd Park, Chief Technology Officer for the Department of Health and Human Services, introduced a new health community on data.gov. Health.data.gov (a/k/a HealthData.gov) is designed to be a clearinghouse for open federal health-related datasets from a wide variety of agencies, including the Agency for Healthcare Research & Quality, the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, the Food & Drug Administration, the National Library of Medicine, and more.

These datasets represent a potential goldmine for researchers in many areas of health and health services.  The tools collected at health.data.gov also include APIs (application programming interfaces) created by the National Library of Medicine that allow programmers to create new and useful tools that leverage the valuable data from federal services like ClinicalTrials.gov and MedlinePlus.gov in new and innovative ways.

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The Library of Congress Rolling Exhibit “Gateway to Knowledge” Visits Kerrville Feb 18-19

The Library of Congress has hit the road with a traveling exhibition called “Gateway to Knowledge” that will be visiting Kerrville, TX this weekend on February 18 and 19.

According to the press release, “The Library of Congress will launch a new traveling exhibition late in September that will bring facsimiles of many of its top treasures and information about the millions of resources in its unparalleled collections to the heartland of America.  The exhibit will include programming especially for teachers and students and provide relevant and engaging learning experiences for lifelong learners. The truck, which will be staffed and driven by two docents well-versed in the Library and its collections, will be parked at various schools, libraries, community centers and other public venues.  The exhibition will also outline the history of the Library, including Thomas Jefferson’s role in allowing its re-establishment following the burning of the U.S. Capitol in 1814 by providing his personal book collection to the nation. Jefferson’s organization of his books by ‘Memory, Reason and Imagination’ will inform the organization of the exhibition.”

Posted in South Texas, Staying Well. Connected., Youth | Comments Off

Stroke Cases Among Mexican-Americans to Soar

The number of stroke victims among Mexican-Americans is expected to skyrocket 350 percent to more than 120,000 by the year 2050.  This figure is the result of information that has been collected during the Brain Attack Surveillance in Corpus Christi Project (BASIC), a study undertaken to compare stroke in non-Hispanic whites and Mexican-Americans, according to Shawnita Jefferson, an investigator at the School of Public Health at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.  Although the total number of those invidividuals affected isn’t as high as non-Hispanic whites, the increase is a staggering rise, nonetheless.

BASIC is an ongoing stroke surveillance project focusing on Mexican-Americans that began in 1999.

Posted in Hispanic health, Staying Well. Connected. | Comments Off

February 23: Release of 2010 Bexar County Health Assessment

On Wednesday, February 23, the Health Collaborative is hosting an event at TriPoint YMCA (3233 North St. Mary’s Street) to mark the release of the 2010 Bexar County Health Assessment. A presentation of key findings will be given from 8:00 to 9:30am.

From the announcement about the event: “The Health Collaborative quadrennial Health Assessment provides a comprehensive quantitative and qualitative community health report. The data is used to help organizations coordinate preventive care and community programs and shape policy decisions that contribute to a healthy, vibrant community.”

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New Pew Research Report Finds 80% of Internet Users Seek Health Information

A report based on telephone interviews from August 9th to September 13th, 2010, finds that 80% of the 3,001 adults over 18 who were interviewed use the Internet to find health information.  As stated by the report, “Symptoms and treatments continue to dominate internet users’ health searches, but food safety, drug safety, and pregnancy information are among eight new topics included in the current survey.”

  • 66% of internet users look online for information about a specific disease or medical problem (perennially in the top spot).
  • 56% of internet users look online for information about a certain medical treatment or procedure.
  • 44% of internet users look online for information about doctors or other health professionals.
  • 36% of internet users look online for information about hospitals or other medical facilities.
  • 33% of internet users look online for information related to health insurance, including private insurance, Medicare or Medicaid.
  • 22% of internet users look online for information about environmental health hazards.

Posted in Hispanic health, News, Reports, Resources, Staying Well. Connected. | Comments Off

Hispanic seniors less likely to receive necessary immunizations

Although elderly individuals have a high risk of complications from flu or pneumonia, a study recently reported in the journal Archives of Internal Medicine indicates that significant racial and ethic disparities exist for immunizations.  Hispanic seniors are less likely to be immunized than non-Hispanic White seniors, with an especially striking difference for pneumococcal immunizations.  The authors suggest several factors for these disparities:

  • language preference is an important factor for immunization, with considerably larger disparities for Spanish-preferring than English-preferring Hispanic seniors
  • geographic factors that determine whether Spanish-preferring seniors live in large Hispanic communities or in linguistically-isolated “new communities”
  • type of available Medicare or managed care plan with respect to uniform preventive care

In terms of increasing immunization among Hispanic seniors, the article states that the findings “have important implications for increasing immunization among Hispanic seniors, suggesting that further efforts are needed to improve cultural and linguistic access to care. In particular, geographic targeting of the subgroups at greatest risk, in combination with surname lists and health literacy mapping, may help optimize outreach and targeting of vaccine resources.”

Haviland AM, Elliott MN, Hambarsoomian K, Lurie N.  Immunization disparities by Hispanic ethnicity and language preference.  Arch Intern Med. 2011, Jan. 24; 171(2): 158-65.

Posted in Hispanic health, Staying Well. Connected. | Comments Off

New NLM Website for Environmental Health Information

The National Library of Medicine (NLM) has made available a new environmental health science website for middle and high school students.  According the site, “Environmental Health is the interrelationship between human health and the environment, either natural or manmade.” Users can search topics on this free site to learn about  air polution, chemicals, climate change, and water polution. The site includes resources for teachers and students that are ” within the context of current middle school science curriculum standards.”  For further study, a variety of links are provided to trusted sources such as the Smithsonian Education site for Prehistoric Climate Change and Why It Matters Today.

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26 Million Americans with Diabetes

Last week the CDC issued a report that 11.3 percent of adults in the United States have diabetes. In a study reported last year the CDC estimated that, following the current trend, one in three adults in the US could have diabetes by 2050.

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“Keeping up with NLM’s PubMed” has Successful Turnout in Laredo

Analiza Perez-Gomez and Cathy Craig from the Laredo Community College Library are receiving training on PubMed from Cheryl Rowan from NN/LM SCR

Analiza Perez-Gomez and Cathy Craig from the Laredo Community College Library are receiving training on PubMed from Cheryl Rowan from NN/LM SCR

On January 20, 2011, Cheryl Rowan, Public Health Outreach Coordinator, and Michelle Malizia, Associate Director, from the National Network of Libraries of Medicine South Central Region (NN/LM SCR) office in Houston traveled to the Laredo Regional Campus Library to teach “Keeping up with NLM’s PubMed.”  Librarians and health professionals from the Laredo community were invited to this four-hour, hands-on training class in order to expand their knowledge and use of PubMed.  PubMed is a free resource containing more than 20 million citations from MEDLINE, life science journals, and online books that is developed and maintained by the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), at the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM), located at the National Institutes of Health (NIH).  Library staff members from the University of Texas Health Science Center San Antonio Laredo Regional Campus, Laredo Community College, and Texas A&M International University participated in this class.  Staff members from the South Texas Area Health Education Center (AHEC) Program attended the training as well.

In addition to the PubMed class, Ms. Rowan also taught a class entitled “Medline Plus and More.” MedlinePlus, available in a variety of languages including English and Spanish, is an internet resource that provides access to reliable consumer health information on the Internet. 

Participants were extremely pleased with the classes and left either with new knowledge of an excellent resource to share with students and health professionals or a better understanding of a useful research tool. 

Posted in Staying Well. Connected., UTHSCSA Library News, Websites | Comments Off

Increase in Hypertension Seen in Older Mexican-Americans

Researchers at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston recently conducted a study which showed an increase in the prevalence of hypertension in older Mexican-Americans living in the Southwest  region (Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, California, Colorado) of the United States.  It is believed the increase is due, in part, to the increase of diabetes and obesity in the population.  While awareness of hypertension was greater at the end of the study, the likelihood of study participants being hypertensive was also greater.  According to Kyriakos S. Markides, co-author and principal investigator of the study, “More effort should be targeted to reverse trends of both obesity and diabetes as potential causes of hypertension.”

The results of the study, which included almost 4,000 participants and was conducted between 1993 and 2005 , can be seen in the January issue of Annals of Epidemiology.

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