Healthy People 2020, a continuation of Healthy People 2010, was started by the United States Department of Health and Human Services. It’s a nationwide health promotion and disease prevention plan that sets public health goals — with the deadline being 2020 in the latest iteration of the program.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is now launching a challenge for developers and researchers to make wellness applications for the Healthy People 2020 campaign — they are providing rich research data sets for free, some that can be found here, giving developers and researchers ample data to write applications with.
They are also providing a list of topics for potential apps from a variety of categories, ranging from apps related to cancer to substance abuse. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at iMedicalApps*
The day Elizabeth Edwards announced that she had breast cancer, my heart sank. Finding a lump in the breast only heightens the suspicious that the prognosis may not be good and in Elizabeth’s case, it wasn’t.
We all admired Elizabeth for different reasons. In my case, it was her love for healthcare reform that quickly grabbed my attention. Elizabeth advocated universal healthcare and comprehensive insurance for all Americans, not a “compromised” version based on partisanship and politics. As the years wore on, she discussed her diagnosis of incurable breast cancer with passion stating that she knew that she had access to the best possible care, but empathized with women who were not as fortunate.
It is said that behind every successful man lies the power behind the throne, and we know this to be true about Elizabeth. She was an accomplished attorney in her own right who took a backseat to raise her kids and support the presidential candidacy of her husband. For a while I thought Elizabeth had won the battle against breast cancer during its remission, but then it resurfaced its ugly head in the midst of her husband’s presidential campaign and she handled it with dignity and grace. Read more »
The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) issued comprehensive food allergy guidelines to help primary care physicians and subspecialists diagnose and manage patients.
The guidelines establish consistent terminology and definitions, diagnostic criteria and patient management practices. Additional topics covered by the guidelines include the prevalence of food allergy and management of acute allergic reactions to food, including anaphylaxis. The report also identifies gaps about what is known about food allergy.
NIAID Director Anthony S. Fauci, MACP, said, “Because these guidelines provide standardized, concise recommendations on how to diagnose and manage food allergy and treat acute food allergy reactions across specialties, we expect both clinicians and food allergy patients to greatly benefit from these clear state-of-the-science clinical standards.” Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at ACP Internist*
Not as often as you think, even though Medicare may be willing to pay for it every two years. Via Science Daily:
Now a new study led by Margaret L. Gourlay, MD, MPH of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine finds that women aged 67 years and older with normal bone mineral density scores may not need screening again for 10 years.
“If a woman’s bone density at age 67 is very good, then she doesn’t need to be re-screened in two years or three years, because we’re not likely to see much change,” Gourlay said. “Our study found it would take about 16 years for 10 percent of women in the highest bone density ranges to develop osteoporosis. That was longer than we expected, and it’s great news for this group of women,” Gourlay said.
The researchers suggest that for T scores > -1.5, repeat testing needn’t be done for 10 years. Women with T scores between -1.5 and -2.0 can be re-screened in 5 years, and those with T scores below -2.0 can have every other year testing as is done now.
To be honest, I’ve been spacing out bone density testing in woman with good baseline scores for some time, but not knowing how long I can go. This is great information for me and for my patients.
*This blog post was originally published at tbtam*
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Healthy People 2020, a continuation of Healthy People 2010, was started by the United States Department of Health and Human Services. It’s a nationwide health promotion and disease prevention plan that sets public health goals — with the deadline being 2020 in the latest iteration of the program.
