HEAT ILLNESS CAN BE DEADLY. Every year, thousands of workers become sick from exposure to heat, and some even die. These illnesses and deaths are preventable.

OSHA has now posted a new Heat Illness Web Page that includes educational materials in English and Spanish, including low-literacy fact sheets for workers, worksite and community posters, and a public service announcement from Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis.  The Web page also includes a video from Assistant Secretary Dr. David Michaels (in English with a Spanish transcript).  OSHA will be posting additional materials on the Heat Illness Web page, including a lesson plan that employers can use to train their workers to stay safe in the heat and a heat index Smartphone app. 

The Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments (ANHE) is a network of nurses from around the country (and world) who are acting on the notion that our environment and health are inextricably connected. We are a group of nurses from all walks of our profession – hospital-based, public health, school-based, academics, and advanced practice, to name a few.   

We are helping to integrate environmental health into nursing education, greening our many workplaces, incorporating environmental exposure questions into our patient histories, providing anticipatory guidance to pregnant women and parents about environmental risks to children, implementing research that addresses environmental health questions, and advocating for environmental health in our workplaces and governmental institutions.

From Health Reources and Services Administration this resource is available in Spanish and english. In an accessible, easy-to-read format, the Seasonal Flu guide provides: flu facts; every day prevention steps; and ways that community leaders can contribute to the flu prevention effort. This guide is an important fight the flu resource for our Spanish-speaking community and faith-based partners.

Order printed copies of the Seasonal Flu guide (in English or in Spanish) from the HHS Partnership Center by emailing partnerships@hhs.gov. Please include # of copies requested, mailing address (or interoffice mail stop) and person of contact in the email. Please specify if you are ordering the English or the Spanish version.

The Diabetes and Healthy Eyes Toolkit helps community health workers provide sight-saving information to people with diabetes. The Toolkit is available in Spanish and English and includes a:

• Diabetes and Healthy Eyes Flipchart to help community health workers educate people with diabetes about eye diseases in a small group setting.
• Diabetes and Healthy Eyes Module for background information and materials to assist community health workers in using the flipchart.
• Watch Out for Your Vision! Brochure to distribute to people with diabetes to educate them about eye disease and the importance of getting a dilated eye exam at least once a year.
• Medicare Benefits Card to promote the glaucoma and diabetic eye disease benefit under Medicare and inform the public about eligibility.
• Publications Order Form to obtain diabetic eye disease materials and resources for distributing to people in your community.
• Evaluation Form to share your thoughts and experiences using the Diabetes and Healthy Eyes Toolkit.
• CD-ROM with copies of the module, flipchart and handouts.

Additional materials include a:

• TRACK Diabetes Magnet (English only) to provide tips to people with diabetes about keeping their health on TRACK.
• Lo bello entra por los ojos...no deje que la diabetes cierre esa ventana (Beauty enters through the eyes. Don't let diabetes close the window.) Poster (Spanish only) to remind people with diabetes about receiving an annual dilated eye exam and offer tips about how to control diabetes.

Community health workers, educators and individuals from around the world use Where There Is No Dentist to help people care for their teeth and gums. This book's broad focus makes it an invaluable resource.

The author uses straightforward language and careful instructions to explain how to: examine patients; diagnose common dental problems; make and use dental equipment; use local anesthetics; place fillings; and remove teeth. There is also a special chapter on oral health and HIV/AIDS, which provides the dental worker with a detailed, well-illustrated discussion of the special problems faced by people living with HIV/AIDS, and appropriate treatment.

From the CDC, complete background on cholera including: General information, resources for health professionlas, epidemiology and risk factors, diagnosis and testing, treatment, prevent & control and more.

Global Health Pathway includes online training in global health, Global Health Open Access Lecture Library, Tanzania Education Exchange, In-person Global Health Course, Community Activities, and Resident Training.

Poder Sano is a new initiative by Farmworker Justice to help mobilize rural Latino communities around the prevention of HIV/AIDS, sexually transmitted infections, and tuberculosis. Through this project, Farmworker Justice will provide free capacity-building assistance and community mobilization tools to strengthen community-based organizations' HIV prevention programs, improve monitoring and evaluation practices, and create partnerships for program support.

Poder Sano aims to mobilize rural Latino communities around the prevention of HIV/AIDS, sexually transmitted infections, tuberculosis, hepatitis, and other health concerns relevant to migrant farmworkers.

Therapies that integrate mind and body, seek health as well as cure, and incorporate a patient's beliefs and values are increasingly popular among consumers. Not to mention, they are supported by strong biologic and outcomes evidence. But for many physicians, this “new age” medicine has been an understandable cause for suspicion.

Now, some rigorous scientists, featured in these videoclips, are conducting groundbreaking studies of the mind-body connection. They are uncovering how and to what extent psychosocial states and events significantly influence physical phenomena like pain and wound healing.

The Community Clinic Voice (the Voice) is a free, online community for Community Health Centers and other safety net health care professionals and partners to network, share information and exchange ideas. It provides one convenient, easy to navigate center to access news, resources, and colleagues. Voice members are clinic CEOs, Medical Directors, clinicians and allied health providers, CFOs, fundraisers, CIOs, operations and administrative staff, and more. There is no cost to join or use the Voice, and it is open to anyone concerned with community health. No commercial or marketing activity is permitted.

Special Bulletin: Outbreak of pertussis (whooping cough) in California
For Immediate Attention:
There is a critical outbreak of pertussis (whooping cough) in California: it is classified now as an epidemic. Five infants, all Latino, have died. This is due to unrecognized pertussis in older children and adults which then infects babies before they’ve had a chance to get their shots. PLEASE spread the word through every mechanism you have that it is critical to get Tdap in adolescents and adults and to get children immunized properly. This months ImmuNews includes a number of resources on Pertussis (Whopping Cough).

The Clinical and Translational Science Collaborative (CTSC) KL2, a post-doctoral training program with an emphasis on multidisciplinary clinical and translational research. Qualified candidates are being offered an opportunity to apply to an innovative career development program whose purpose is to train clinician investigators.  The CTSC KL2 is designed to train the nation’s future leaders in clinical and translational research, and is part of the NIH Roadmap aimed at “re-engineering the clinical research enterprise.”

A Shot of Quality Improvement!

Welcome to Immu-News, the Immunization Initiatives listserv, a monthly resource for the community of participants in this project.

All health care delivery organizations are required to have quality assurance and quality improvement programs, but it is often difficult to make these efforts really meaningful in the everyday practice of serving patients. This month’s Immu-News suggests a number of immunization quality measurements that you can adapt to your local setting. We are finding from our site visits that many of you really struggle with understanding who is getting immunized, who is missed, and what the root causes are for the gap between your goal of full immunization and the present reality at your center. Additionally, immunization data gathering is often very time consuming, often duplicated several times over for various outside agencies, and often not in step with the ways changes are made in other parts of your organization. Here are a few ideas from us, and we welcome responses back from you that will continually improve immunization practices.

Addressing the Big Four: On-Time Immunizations, Knowing Your Baseline, Making Improvement, and Accurate Records

Our four quality topics will cover:

• Immunization reminder systems
• Baseline immunization rate audits
• Measuring success
• Patient self-management in record retrieval

Resources

• PDSA Worksheet for Testing Change
• Immunization Audit Summary
• Manual Immunization Audit

Este recurso del CDC ofrece una visión general de la tos ferina , también conocida como Whooping Cough. Los temas incluyen síntomas , propagación, la tos ferina en los EE.UU. y las medidas de prevención.

This resources provides an overview of Pertussis, also known as the Whooping Cough. Topics include symptoms, how its spread, Pertussis in the US and prevention measures.