Resources

Swine Flu – how to stay informed

With the recent Swine Flu outbreak, many of us want to stay informed about the latest information. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have created a site for information on Swine Flu (http://www.cdc.gov/swineflu). The World Health Organization (WHO) has also created a site (http://www.who.int/csr/disease/swineflu/en/index.html) to post information about swine flu and the latest news.

To stay informed and to track the swine flu online, Mashable, the online social media guide, just posted a few ideas:

  1. Check the WHO Disease Outbreak Center: http://www.who.int/csr/don/en/
  2. Set up a Google News Alert Use the keywords “swine flu” and the news stories about “swine flu” will be emailed to you
  3. Check HealthMap for outbreaks.

If you are on twitter, you can follow http://outbreak.tweetmeme.com/ for the most popular links on twitter about the swine flu. The CDC has http://www.twitter.com/cdcemergency with the latest information about swine flu.

Thanks, Mashable for great ideas.

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Texas Oral Health Group (OHG)

The Oral Health Group (OHG) at the Texas Department of State Health Services (DSHS) provides many resources to promote good oral health, including resources for oral health education and clinical guidelines.

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Texas-Mexican Border Study finds pesticides a BIG problem.

HARLINGEN,TX— Air samples from homes of Hispanic mothers-to-be along the Texas-Mexico border contained multiple pesticides in a majority of the houses, according to a study conducted by the School of Medicine at The University of Texas Health Science Center San Antonio.
Several studies have reported that pesticide exposure may adversely affect mental and motor development of the infants during infancy and childhood. The new report is in the summer issue of the Texas Public Health Journal .

Click Here to read the entire story as it appears in the HSC News Publication, and what suggestions are being made to remedy the situation.  Story by Will Sansom and Sheila Hotchkin.

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The CLHIN Program of the University of Texas Health Science Center, San Antonio, TX, Briscoe Library Outreach

CLHIN (Circuit Librarian Health Information Network), a program provided by the University of Texas Health Science Center, Briscoe Library Outreach Program, provides accredited continuing education courses for nurses that provide participants with the skills they need to use current information technologies to obtain the latest news and research in the medical field.

We teach courses on health information resources that are approved for 1.0 CNE contact hour. Nursing contact hours have been approved through the Texas Nurses Association, an accredited approver of continuing nursing education by the American Nurses Credentialing Center’s Commission on Accreditation.

These are just a couple of the programs we offer through the outreach program of the Briscoe Library. For a comprehensive listing of CLHIN programs and contacts, visit CLHIN Services.

If you would like to set a date for any of our CE courses contact your institution’s CLHIN contact or email CLHIN@uthscsa.edu for more information.

 

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Think Cultural Health

Sponsored by the US Dept. of Health & Human Services, Office of Minority Health(OMH), the Think Cultural Health website offers cultural competency e-training for health providers. Part of the OMH mission is to “improve the health of racial and ethnic minority populations through the development of effective health policies and programs that help to eliminate disparities in health”.

Along with free online courses which are accredited for continuing education credit, other resources and tools are available to promote awareness of cultural awareness in the patient population. Resources are available for physicians, physicians’ assistants, nurse practitioners, nurses, pharmacists, social workers and other health professionals. The website is advertising a soon to be curriculum for emergency responders also. Another added resource is the Health Care Services Language Implementation Guide which has been developed to assist healthcare organizations implement language access services to meet the needs of patients who have limited English proficiency.

Think Cultural Health: Bridging the Health Care Gap through Cultural Competency Continuing Education Programs.

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Valley Doula Program to support mother & baby health

Yesterday’s Valley Morning Star featured an article on doulas — trained childbirth educators/supporters — and a new Rio Grande Valley pilot program funded by an HHS grant that will offer free doula services to 100 women who are patients at the region’s community health centers, including Su Clinica Familiar in Harlingen and Nuestra Clinica del Valle in Pharr. The goal of the program is to measure the impact of doula involvement specifically on new mothers’ mental health and wellbeing; however, the article mentions some studies that have shown positive correlation between doula involvement (also called “continuous labor support” in the literature) and physical outcomes such as higher rates of breastfeeding intent and early introduction, reduced rates of c-sections in some first-time mothers, and reduced use of obstetric pain relief interventions. The two studies mentioned in the Valley Morning Star article are:

  • Mottl-Santiago J, Walker C, Ewan J, Vragovic O, Winder S, Stubblefield P. A Hospital-Based Doula Program and Childbirth Outcomes in an Urban, Multicultural Setting. Matern Child Health J [forthcoming]. doi:10.1007/s10995-007-0245-9. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10995-007-0245-9
  • Leeman L, Fontaine P, King V, Klein MC, Ratcliffe S. The Nature and Management of Labor Pain: Part I. Nonpharmacologic Pain Relief. Am Fam Physician 2003 Sep 15;68(6):1109-12. http://www.aafp.org/afp/20030915/1109.html [Open Access]

Two additional citations from the second article above give further insight into the research on doula intervention:

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Why you should consider organ or tissue donation

Each day, about 74 people receive an organ transplant — but 17 people die because of a critical shortage of organ donors.  A single donor can save or enhance the lives of more than 50 others.  Yet, especially in minority communities, donations do not keep pace with need. The Office of Minority Health states: “Successful transplantation is often enhanced by matching of organs between members of the same racial and ethnic group. Generally, people are genetically more similar to people of their own ethnicity or race than to people of other races. Therefore, matches are more likely and more timely when donors and potential recipients are members of the same ethnic background.” (http://minorityhealth.hhs.gov/templates/content.aspx?ID=3123)  While most organ donations occur at the time of death, kidneys, blood, platelets, and some other tissues can be donated by a living donor.  Most major religions, including Catholicism, Protestantism, Islam, and most branches Judaism consider organ donation to be consistent with their beliefs and tenets.

In addition to the Office of Minority Health, there are many other online resources that can answer questions — and debunk myths — about organ and tissue donations including MedlinePlus (http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/organdonation.html), the South Texas Blood and Tissue Center (http://www.southtexasblood.org/),  Donate Life Texas (https://www.donatelifetexas.org/TXDear_Secure/default.aspx), and OrganDonor.gov (http://organdonor.gov/).

You have the power to donate life by signing up today to become an organ, tissue and eye donor.

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