The National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) today announced the release of new health information to raise awareness about diabetes, digestive diseases, and kidney and urologic diseases among people not yet diagnosed with these illnesses. The NIDDK developed the Awareness and Prevention Series for community health fairs, workplace health forums, family reunions, and other similar events. NIDDK is one of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

The Awareness and Prevention Series publications are each two-page fact sheets — one side in English and the other in Spanish — on a wide range of health topics, including bladder control, celiac disease, foodborne illness, irritable bowel syndrome, pre-diabetes, preventing diabetes complications, urinary tract infections, and many others. Each fact sheet gives readers a snapshot of an illness, highlighting risk factors, symptoms, prevention tips, and where to go for more information.

Copyright-free full texts of the Awareness and Prevention Series publications — and all other publications from the Clearinghouses — are online at http://www.niddk.nih.gov To order copies of the Awareness and Prevention Series fact sheets, click on “NIDDK Awareness and Prevention Series” and then on http://catalog.niddk.nih.gov [Read the complete NIH Press Release at http://www.nih.gov/news/health/feb2008/niddk-29a.htm ]

Big Cities Health Inventory (BCHI) - The Health of Urban USA
US National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO) Metro Forum. 2007
Available online as PDF file [150p.] at: http://www.naccho.org/topics/crosscutting/documents/BCHI07COLORFINAL.pdf
“…… a compendium of health status indicators produced in a comparative format for the 54 largest metropolitan areas in the United States.

Data on the health of our communities are probably more widely available at this time than at any point in the past. The Internet has become a vast repository of statistics on a variety health conditions. But less progress has been made in turning these raw data into usable information, especially for the nation’s largest urban areas which face higher rates of poor health status and racial/ethnic disparities in illness and access to health care services.

Several key principles of public health practice depend on having reliable and current information regarding the health status of the community. The most obvious of these principles is evidence-based decision making and the core science of public health, epidemiology, is grounded in the collection and analysis of data.

Perhaps an even more fundamental principle is social justice and the recognition that eliminating health disparities is critical to improving the health of the overall population. For highly diverse urban populations, understanding the root causes of health disparities, including the synergistic interplay of social and environmental stressors that contribute to the erosion of resiliency in many of our nation’s urban communities, is necessary to accomplish this goal….” [posted by PAHO/WHO Equity Listserv}

In the NN/LM MCR region, cities covered include, Omaha, NE; St. Louis, MO; Denver, CO; Colorado Springs, CO; Kansas City, MO; and Witchita, KS

Bienvenidos a la Biblioteca!: A Spanish Pointing Guide
http://webjunction.org/do/DisplayContent?id=19573
Check out this 60-page English-Spanish Pointing Guide for public service staff and their customers created by the Beaufort County Library. The guide presents many typical front-line situations in an easy-to-use tabular format. Both English-speaking staff and customers who speak Spanish can use the guide to conduct an unspoken dialog by pointing to the questions and responses that appear side-by-side in English and Spanish.

March Webinar: Strategies for the Health Reference Interview with Spanish Speakers
Join WebJunction for the next free, hour-long webinar: March 11th, 10:00-11:00 AM PST/ 1:00-2:00 PM EST. Listen to Cathy Jacobus and Sol Gomez from Pima County Library share tips and best practices for conducting a reference interview for health information with Spanish speakers. Learn about additional online health information resources to help you assist your Spanish-speaking patrons.

For more information on the webinar series, visit Spanish Outreach - In Depth http://webjunction.org/do/Navigation?category=15431 where you’ll find a schedule of future sessions, instructions for joining the online webinars, archives of the sessions, and related resources. [posted on WebJunction's March 2008 Spanish Language Outreach Update]

The Proceedings of the 2006 Surgeon General’s Workshop on Improving Health Literacy are available on the Surgeon General’s Web site at: http://www.surgeongeneral.gov/topics/healthliteracy/toc.htm The Workshop took place on September 6, 2006 at the National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland. [posted on the Healthy People NIH listserv]

2008 National Network of Public Health Institutes (NNPHI) Annual Conference: Unlocking Hidden Potential for Health Policy Reform
https://www.regonline.com/builder/site/Default.aspx?eventid=183209
May 14-16, 2008, New Orleans, LA

Annual Minority Health Conference: What Does It Mean to Be Brown and Green? The Environment and Environmental Health in Minority Communities
http://www.brownandgreen2008.org/
March 28- 29, 2008, Ann Arbor, MI

Community Preparedness: Addressing the Needs of Diverse Populations
http://publichealth.yale.edu/ycphp/conference.html
April 17-18, 2008, New Haven, CT

The Educated Citizen and Public Health
http://www.aacu.org/public_health/
Publications, presentations, and other resources to assist faculty to develop public health curricula for undergraduate education in colleges and universities, including a curriculum guide for Undergraduate Public Health Education.

[posted on PHPartners http://phpartners.org/ - New Links for the week of Feb 29, 2008]

Overcoming Obstacles to Health
From the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
http://www.rwjf.org/pr/product.jsp?id=26673
Social and economic factors are keeping some Americans from being as healthy as they should be. Based on work conducted by researchers at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), this report outlines in stark detail how a person’s health and the likelihood of becoming sick and dying prematurely are greatly influenced by powerful social factors—such as levels of education, income and the quality of neighborhood environments.

Unequal Health Outcomes in the United States
A Report to the U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination January 2008
http://tinyurl.com/2w78nv
In December 2007 The Opportunity Agenda collaborated with more than 20 other social justice organizations, scholars, and advocates to prepare and submit a report to the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) regarding racial and ethnic disparities in health. The report, titled Unequal Health Outcomes in the United States, argues that the United State has the opportunity to do more to address health disparities.

Many older adults have their blood cholesterol level checked regularly. Now, easy-to-understand information about why this test is so important to heart health and what the results mean is available on NIHSeniorHealth, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Web site designed especially for seniors. Consumers can log onto http://nihseniorhealth.gov/highbloodcholesterol/toc.html for answers to questions such as: What’s the difference between LDL and HDL? Which one is the “good” cholesterol? What are triglycerides? What do the numbers mean? How is high blood cholesterol treated? The complete NIH News Release is available online at http://www.nih.gov/news/health/feb2008/nia-28.htm

The Office of Civil Rights has put together an online guide for hospitals to refer to regarding “Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, and national origin, and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 which prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability by recipients of financial assistance from HHS… Under these laws, hospitals must communicate effectively with patients, family members, and visitors who are deaf or hard-of-hearing and must take reasonable steps to provide meaningful access to their programs for persons who have limited English proficiency. Complementing these obligations are the new accreditation provisions promulgated by the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations, including the recently adopted requirement that hospitals collect information about the language and communications needs of patients.” This online guide will assist hospitals in meeting these responsibilities and to help ensure access to quality health care. http://www.hhs.gov/ocr/hospitalcommunication.html

Nominations Invited for Gloria Barron Prize for Young Heroes
Deadline: April 30, 2008
The Gloria Barron Prize for Young Heroes ( http://barronprize.org/ ) seeks nominations for its 2008 awards. The Barron Prize honors young people between the ages of 8 and 18 who have made a significant positive difference to people and our planet. Each year, the Barron Prize selects ten winners from across the U.S. — five focused on helping their communities and fellow beings, and the other five focused on protecting the health and sustainability of the environment. http://fconline.foundationcenter.org/pnd/10011464/barronprize

Google Invites Children to Design Special Logo
Deadline: March 28, 2008 (School Registration)
Google ( http://www.google.com/ ) has announced the launch of Doodle 4 Google, a competition that invites K-12 students in the United States to design a Google logo on the open-ended theme “What If…?” The winning design will be used as Google’s logo on May 22, 2008, with the artist receiving $10,000 toward his/her college education. http://fconline.foundationcenter.org/pnd/10011466/doodleforgoogle

American Journal of Health Promotion Invites Nominations for Robert F. Allen Symbol of H.O.P.E. Award
Deadline: April 25, 2008
Presented annually by the American Journal of Health Promotion ( http://www.healthpromotionjournal.com/ ), the Robert F. Allen Symbol of H.O.P.E. (Helping Other People Through Empowerment) Award honors individuals who have worked to promote cultural diversity within health promotion or who have demonstrated significant achievement in serving the health promotion needs of underserved populations. National prominence or celebrity status is not a criterion for the award. http://fconline.foundationcenter.org/pnd/10011468/healthpromotion

Center for Community Health Leadership Opens Second Round of Grant Application Process
Deadline: April 15, 2008
The Center for Community Health Leadership ( http://www.misyscenter.com/default.htm ), an organization sponsored by Misys Healthcare Systems ( http://www.misyshealthcare.com/ ) to facilitate the development of health information pathways by building connected communities, has announced the opening of its grant-application process. The center invites professionals from physicians’ practices, health information exchange organizations, hospitals, and home health agencies interested in sharing clinical data for diagnostic and therapeutic purposes to submit proposals on behalf of their community. The grant program was launched in June 2006 to spearhead the widespread adoption of electronic health records at a local level, where health care is actually delivered. http://fconline.foundationcenter.org/pnd/10011469/misyscenter

Grammy Winner Common, MTV, and Kaiser Family Foundation Launch Lyrics Contest to Promote HIV Testing
Deadline: March 27, 2008
Hip-hop artist and actor Common, in collaboration with It’s Your (Sex) Life ( http://www.itsyoursexlife.com/ ), a public informa tion partnership between the Kaiser Family Foundation ( http://www.kff.org/ ), MTV, and the Common Ground Foundation ( http://www.commongroundfoundation.org/ ), with support from Youth Speaks ( http://www.youthspeaks.org/ ), is launching “A Minute” — a new lyrics contest designed to encourage young people to get tested for HIV. Through this initiative, Common, MTV, and Kaiser are encouraging young people to take a minute to inform themselves and others about HIV testing. http://fconline.foundationcenter.org/pnd/10011470/aminutecontest

[ Copyright (c) 2000-2008, the Foundation Center. All rights reserved. Permission to use, copy, and/or distribute this document in whole or in part for non-commercial purposes without fee is hereby granted provided that this notice and appropriate credit to the Foundation Center is included in all copies. RFP Bulletin (February 26, 2008)]

To address the need for leaders with expertise in addressing racial/ethnic disparities in health care, The Disparities Solutions Center is accepting applications for The Disparities Leadership Program for 2008-2009. The Disparities Leadership Program (DLP) is a yearlong executive education program designed for leaders from hospitals, health plans and other health care organizations such as executive leaders, medical directors, directors of quality and directors of community benefits or multicultural affairs offices - who want to a. develop a strategic plan or b. advance a project to eliminate racial and ethnic disparities in health care, particularly through quality improvement. To learn more about the Disparities Leadership Program sponsored by the DSC, please read the DLP Request for Applications. http://www.massgeneral.org/disparitiessolutions/dlprogram.html [posted on joint commission listserv]