Spring Newsletter

Spring 2008 Newsletter (PDF - 1.99 MB)

On This Page:

• National Poison Prevention Week, March 16-22, 2008
• Poison Help Campaign Launch
• Poison Control Centers: A Prescription for Value - 2008 Poison Control Program Grantee Meeting
• Technical Assistance Highlight
• State Epidemiological Outcomes Workgroup
• American Association of Poison Control Centers releases 2006 Poison Data
• AHRQ releases toolkits to help providers and patients implement safer health care practices
• Poison-related CDC Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Reports
• Linking poison center data with public health data—Northern New England Poison Center’s experience
• Spring Tips
• SMARxT Disposal Program
• Toll-free number for reporting adverse events on labeling for human drug products
• Health educators recognized by Department of Labor

Support National Poison Prevention Week, March 16-22, 2008

To kick-off National Poison Prevention Week, HRSA unveiled a new digital Poison Help Campaign (PoisonHelp.hrsa.gov) at an event in Union Station in Washington, DC on Thursday, March 13 from 9am-6pm. The event, in conjunction with the Poison Prevention Week Council, featured exhibitors from partner organizations who distributed materials and answered questions about poison prevention. There was a press event at 11am where Dr. Elizabeth Duke, HRSA Administrator, highlighted the increased trends in poisonings, the need for continued prevention efforts and the resources available at the nation’s poison control centers. Also delivering remarks at the press event were Nancy Nord, Acting Chairman for Consumer Products Safety Commission, and Dr. Stuart Heard, President of the American Association of Poison Control Centers, along with Nancy Bock and Kristin Lolmaugh of the Poison Prevention Week Council.

Be a part of your community efforts during National Poison Prevention Week! Contact the Poison Control Center in your area to learn about activities being conducted in your area to educate the public about poison prevention.

Poison Help Campaign Launch

HRSA Poison Control Program has launched the new Poison Help Campaign and Web site, PoisonHelp.hrsa.gov. The focus of the Campaign is to serve as a resource for poison prevention information and inform Americans about the national Poison Help toll-free number (1-800-222-1222) for expert advice on poisoning. On the site are educational materials, including downloadable brochures, tip sheets, and digital ads. In addition, visitors to the site can learn the 1-800-222-1222 jingle in English and Spanish! The Web site links to each poison control center and provides other poison information resources.

Poison Control Centers: A Prescription for Value - 2008 Poison Control Program Grantee Meeting

The HRSA Poison Control Program (PCP) grantee meeting was held on February 5 and 6, 2008 in Nashville, Tennessee. The meeting, entitled Poison Control Centers: A Prescription for Value, featured a theme that emphasized the value and contributions of poison control centers (PCs) to health and public health. Over 100 representatives from PCCs across the country were in attendance.

A welcome reception on the evening of February 5 provided a setting for poster presentations from 18 HRSA PCP grantees with Incentive Grant projects that were either completed or underway. A unifying thread among all 18 posters/projects was the use of HRSA PCP funds to encourage and support innovation and movement by centers improved technology, training and community involvement and outreach.

The February 6 program emphasized ways in which poison centers are of value within their communities. Invited speakers provided information on the integration of poisoning services, interaction by PCCs with the public health community, use of media to enhance awareness of poison center services, grants information, and work by the HRSA PCC Values Committee on development of a formal, consistent statement for use by PCCs and key organizations to describe and promote the value of PCC programs and services.

Copies of the presentations are available online. For more information about the meeting, contact Lori Roche, HRSA PCP Director, at lroche@hrsa.gov.

Technical Assistance Highlight

Web site Assistance

Traditionally, HRSA’s Poison Center Technical Assistance Resource Center (PC TARC) responds to requests for assistance and support from PCCs. The nature of issues in which TA is requested varies by center. When resources permit, PC TARC draws upon consultant staff for the expertise needed to respond. During this past year, 2007, the PC TARC staff drew upon the technical and professional resources of its host organization, the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation to secure the services of two highly skilled individuals to assist the New Jersey Poison Information and Education System (NJPIES) in updating their Poison Center Web site.

During 2007, a coordinated NJPIES/PC TARC team initiated and completed a successful redesign and redevelopment of the PCC Web site.

The new Web site was unveiled in early January 2008.. Please feel free to visit the New Jersey Poison Information and Education System (NJPIES) Web site and to contact PC TARC staff or members of the NJPIES staff with your comments or questions. Thank you to Dr. Steve Marcus and Ms. Alicia Gambino for their permission to share this brief description with the readers of this newsletter.

The New Jersey project was one of two Web site related TA activities carried out in 2007.

To reach PC TARC staff, please e-mail pctarc@pire.org or call 301-755-2800, ext. 1.

State Epidemiological Outcomes Workgroup

On December 12, 2007, HRSA Poison Control Program staff member Barbara Singer moderated a webinar presented through the State Epidemiological Outcomes Workgroup (SEOW) audio-teleconference series. Presentations made during the webinar focused on the epidemiology of poisonings and poison data in the United States, with an emphasis on substance related poisonings. The presenters for the webinar were Monique Sheppard, HRSA's Poison Center Technical Assistance Resource Center (PC TARC); Edward Krenzelok, Director, Pittsburgh Poison Center; Len Paulozzi, National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC); and Rhonda Roberts, Injury and Violence Prevention Branch, North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services.

SEOW is funded by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Association Center for Substance Abuse Prevention Data Coordinating Center. Presentations from this webinar and others in the series are available through the State Epidemiological Outcomes Workgroup (SEOW) audio-teleconference series, (Password is epi).

American Association of Poison Control Centers releases 2006 Poison Data

The American Association of Poison Control Centers (AAPCC) has recently released the 2006 Annual Report of the AAPCCs’ National Poison Data System (NPDS). The report shows the following about calls to poison control centers.

• More than 4 million calls to poison control centers were captured in Calendar Year 2006. Of this number: 2.4 million were reports of human exposure; 1.5 million were requests for information; 128,539 were non-human exposure calls; and 1,229 were human fatalities.
• Analgesics (pain relievers) were the most frequent substances involved in all human exposures.
• Ten percent of exposure calls to the U.S. Poison Control Centers in 2006 were related to therapeutic error.
• Fifty percent of exposure calls were for children under age 6; a male predominance is found in children younger than 13, but this trend is reversed in teenagers and adults, with women comprising the majority of reported poison exposure victims. There is also a switch from unintentional to intentional poisonings.
• The most common exposures in children younger than age 6 were cosmetics/personal care products.
• Exposure calls continued to increase, but not at the rate of information calls. Sixty-three percent of information calls were drug identification calls.

AHRQ releases toolkits to help providers and patients implement safer health care practices

An array of toolkits designed to help doctors, nurses, hospital managers, patients, and others reduce medical errors was released in December by HHS’ Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). The 17 toolkits, developed by AHRQ-funded experts who specialize in patient safety research, are free, publicly available, and can be adapted to most health care settings. The toolkits range from checklists to help reconcile medications when patients are discharged from the hospital, to processes that enhance effective communication among caregivers and patients, to toolkits to help patients taking medications. The toolkits correlate with the Joint Commission’s National Patient Safety Goals, which promote system wide improvements in patient safety. For more information and a complete listing of the 17 toolkits, visit the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality Web site.

Poison-related CDC Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Reports

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has issued two Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Reports (MMWR) highlighting poisoning as a growing public health concern.

Unintentional Poisoning Deaths – United States,1999–2004

This MMWR, issued February 9, 2007, examines unintentional poisoning deaths between the years 1999 and 2004. According to the report, in 2004, poisoning was second only to motor-vehicle crashes as a cause of death from unintentional injury in the United States. Of poisoning deaths in the United States, nearly all are attributed to drugs, and most drug poisonings result from the abuse of prescription and illegal drugs. Among all age groups, the largest increase in unintentional poisoning deaths occurred among persons aged 15–24 years (113.3 percent). This is a significant change from 2004, when the highest mortality rates were among persons aged 35–54 years, accounting for 59.6 percent of all poisoning deaths that year. Increases by rural status of state are provided in the MMWR. To review the complete article, visit the CDC Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report Web site.

Increases in age-group – specific injury mortality, United States, 1999–2004

This MMWR, issued December 14, 2007, examines increases in injury mortality in specific age groups between the years 1999 and 2004. From 1979 to 1999, total injury mortality rates declined overall in the United States, despite increases in suicide rates in the late 1980s and in homicide rates in the early 1990s. From 1999 to 2004, however, total injury mortality rates increased 5.5 percent, from 53.3 to 56.2 per 100,000 persons—the first sustained increase in 25 years. Injury mechanisms were analyzed for the two age groups with the greatest percentage of change in injury mortality rates from 1999 to 2004: persons aged 20–29 years and persons aged 45–54 years. An increase in unintentional poisoning deaths (most commonly drug poisoning) accounted for a high percentage of the unintentional injury rate increases for both age groups. To review the complete article visit the CDC Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report Web site.

Linking poison center data with public health data—Northern New England Poison Center’s experience

Poisonings are a growing public health problem and are difficult to relate in separate data sources. To code cases of poisoning, poison centers use National Poison Data System* (NPDS) codes, whereas public health professionals use International Classification of Disease, Ninth Revision, Clinical Modification (ICD-9-CM) codes. Currently, there is no standard translation between these two coding systems.

To establish translation, data from Northern New England Poison Center (NNEPC) was linked to New Hampshire Inpatient Hospital and Emergency Department data. For each related set of poisoning cases, NNEPC assigned NPDS codes were compared to hospital-assigned ICD-9CM codes. The crosswalk was 50 percent effective. Typically, hospital data for linked cases that did not match included the condition (e.g., foreign object), not the poison code (e.g., paint). Poison centers play a critical role in identifying health care treated poisoning cases. Currently, hospital records undercount poisonings because, instead of coding the poisoning, they code the result of the poisoning (i.e., burns, foreign bodies, syncope).

A poster describing this work, titled “Decoding the Poison Mystery—Linking TESS and ICD-9-CM Codes,” was presented at the annual American Public Health Association (APHA) this past November. The poster was presented by Melissa Heinen of the NNEPC, Monique Sheppard of HRSA's Poison Center Technical Assistance Resource Center, and David Swenson of New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services. The APHA conference, held last year in Washington, DC, draws more than 13,000 public health professionals annually.

*National Poison Data System was formerly called Toxic Exposure Surveillance System (TESS).

Spring Tips

Here are some simple tips to keep your family safe as you begin spring cleaning and work on the yard:

• Keep poisons in the containers they came in.
• Store strong chemicals away from food.
• Read and follow the directions before use of product.

For more information about Poison Prevention.

SMARxT Disposal Program

The American Pharmacists Association (APhA) and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) have partnered to launch the SMARxT Disposal program aimed at educating consumers about new prescription drug-disposal guidelines. The goal of the SMARxT Disposal program is to raise awareness about the potential environmental impact of flushing pharmaceuticals and to disseminate the new disposal guidelines. The following steps have been outlined for drug disposal:

1. Do not flush most medications. Flush prescription drugs down the toilet only if the label or accompanying patient information specifically instructs doing so.
   
   
2. When tossing unused medications, APhA recommends that you:
   
   
   • Crush or dissolve solid medications in water and mix with kitty litter or sawdust (or any material that absorbs the dissolved medication and makes it less appealing for pets or children to eat), and place the unused medications in a sealed plastic bag BEFORE tossing in the trash.
   • Remove and destroy ALL identifying personal information from the medication container.
   • Check for approved State and local collection programs or with area hazardous waste facilities. In certain States, you may be able to take your unused medications to your community pharmacy.
     
     
3. Talk to your pharmacist. Research shows that pharmacists are one of the most accessible health care professionals. As the medication experts on the health care team, pharmacists are available to guide you on how to properly dispose of your unused medications.

Keeping unused, expired medications can be harmful t you and to everyone in your house. The proper disposal of unneeded medications is key to preventing a poisoning emergency. Poison Control Centers are also a good resource for information on local medication disposal programs, and can be reached by calling 1-800-222-1222.

For more information on proper disposal of medications visit the Office of National Drug Control Policy Web site.

For additional information on the SMARxT Disposal campaign visit the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service Web site.

Toll-free number for reporting adverse events on labeling for human drug products

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has issued (December, 2007) an interim final rule requiring that certain human drug products include a statement and toll-free number for reporting of side effects. The rule, titled “Toll-Free Number for Reporting Adverse Events on Labeling for Human Drug Products,” went into effect on January 1, 2008; however, companies have until January 1, 2009 to comply. Labeling for specific over-the-counter medications that do not currently meet this requirement must include a toll-free number and may use one that will be managed by FDA (1-800-FDA-1088). The number is to be used for reporting only and not to seek medical advice. To review the complete rule, visit The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Web site.

Health educators recognized by Department of Labor

Health educators were one of only two new occupations added to the U.S. Department of Labor Occupational Outlook Handbook this year. Here is information of interest from the handbook:

• Five of 10 health educators work in health care and social assistance and an additional 2 of 10 work in State and local government.
• A bachelor’s degree is the minimum requirement for entry-level jobs, but many employers prefer to hire workers with a master’s degree.
• Rapid job growth is expected, but the relatively small number of jobs in this occupation will limit the number of job openings.

The Handbook also provides a section describing the unique skills and competencies of health educators. The 2008-09 edition of the Occupational Outlook Handbook is available at U.S. Department of Labor Web site.

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