Health in Public Media: Highlight HEALTH Joins 170 Million Americans

February 18, 2011 | by

Congress and the White House are clashing over the federal budget. Congress is considering serious cuts in funding for all public broadcasting. Since January, three bills have been introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives to cut or eliminate the $430 million currently allocated for the Corporation For Public Broadcasting (CBP). Pending a vote in congress this week, the Public Broadcasting System (PBS), considered by the public to be the second-best use of taxpayer dollars (outranked only by defense spending [1]), could cease to exist.

170 Million Americans

Health Literacy: Key for Managing Personal Health

January 14, 2011 | by

Health literacy is 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 [1]. Health literacy is important because it affects a individual’s ability to manage personal health: to navigate the healthcare system, share health history with healthcare providers, engage in self-care and manage chronic disease, and understand concepts such as probability and risk.

Easter Seals Living With Disabilities Study

January 5, 2011 | by

Most of us take everyday adult life for granted; we have a place to live, access to transportation and the opportunity to live independently. The same can most likely be said for those of us with adult children. The basics are covered. But what happens if you’re one of the millions of adults living with a developmental disability in this country? What if you’re the parent and caregiver to an adult child with a disability? How is your life different? Are the basics covered?

When people with disabilities turn 21, they and their families are no longer eligible for the services and supports provided by law through the school system. To determine how this affects them, Easter Seals — the nonprofit, community-based health agency dedicated to helping children and adults with disabilities attain greater independence — commissioned Harris Interactive to perform an online poll of adults with disabilities and their parents [1]. The primary goals of the study were to call attention to the challenges these people face, help service providers better respond to their needs, and heighten awareness of the needs of adults living with disabilities and their families.

NIHSeniorHealth.gov Adds Topic on Anxiety Disorders in Older Adults

December 8, 2010 | by

Anxiety caused by stressful events like moving or losing a job is a normal part of life. Anxiety disorders, on the other hand, are characterized by persistent, excessive and disabling fear and worry and get progressively worse if left untreated. It is estimated that anxiety disorders affect between 3 and 14 percent of older adults in a given year. To provide an older audience with additional information, NIHSeniorHealth, the health and wellness website for older adults from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), has added a topic about anxiety disorders.

NIH Senior Health - Anxiety Disorders

Visitors to the website can learn about the risk factors, symptoms and treatments for generalized anxiety disorder, social phobia, panic disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) and specific phobias such as fear of flying or fear of public speaking. Anxiety disorders can severely affect a person’s life, and they are often overlooked in older adults.

Health in 200 Countries Over 200 Years in 4 Minutes

December 5, 2010 | by

Hans Rosling is Professor of International Health at Karolinska Institute, one of Europe’s largest medical universities, and Director of the Gapminder Foundation, a non-profit venture that promotes sustainable global development and achievement of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals by the increased use and understanding of statistics and other information about social, economic and environmental development at local, national and global levels.

Rosling’s lectures combine huge quantities of public data with a sport commentator’s style to reveal the story of the world’s past, present and future development. Here, he tells the story of the world in 200 countries over 200 years using 120,000 numbers — in just four minutes.

Plotting life expectancy against income for every country since 1810, Rosling shows how the world we live in is radically different from the world most of us imagine.

References

  1. The Joy of Stats. BBC. Accessed 2010 Dec 4.