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| June 04, 2012- In This Issue |
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Home
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Local Grads Helping |
Prescription For Nature |
DPHIS Group Update |
Findings On HPV |
Fayette Oconee Partner Up |
Child Health |
PHBRIEFS |
PHNEWS |
PHRECIPE |
PHTRAINING |
PHEVENTS
Local Graduates Helping Young Mothers and Children
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WIC nutritionists Addie Crum and Hannah Michaels
with WIC Clerk
Maria Pimentel. |
Addie Crum, 2005 Christian Heritage School graduate,
2006 Dalton High School graduate Maria Pimentel and 2007
Dalton High School graduate Hannah Michaels, are all
working through the local Women, Infant and Children
(WIC) program to assist in supplementing the nutritional
needs of young mothers and children. WIC serves 7,000 young mothers and children in Whitfield
County and funds are available to provide services to
many others. Established in 1972, WIC began to provide supplemental
foods to preschool children whose diets, as shown
through studies, tend to be low in iron, calcium,
vitamin C and protein. On the local level, 67 percent of the kindergarten
children in Whitfield County and Dalton Public school
systems participated in the WIC program at some point
prior to their fifth birthday. Families with children under age 5 are eligible for WIC
by meeting liberal income guidelines. In fact, a family
of four can make as much as $19.87 an hour, or $41,348
annually, and receive WIC services. Applicants are asked
to bring a current pay stub from each working member of
the household or the previous year's 1040 to qualify.
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Can Prescriptions For Nature Defeat Childhood Obesity?
Parents taking their children for a check-up in Georgia may
be in for a surprise. If the physician's assistant thinks
your child needs more exercise, she may prescribe healthy
hikes in the great outdoors; she'll give you a prescription
that you can trade in for free park passes.
Georgia's State Park system has teamed up with the Georgia
Association of Physicians Assistants to make healthy living
a bit more fun.
Rx For Fitness
"Rx for Fitness" is part of the State Park system's new Tons
of Fun Fitness Challenge, which encourages citizens to use
outdoor recreation as part of their regular exercise. The
idea is that park visitors may find that exploring a canyon
is more fun than a step machine, and that hiking along a
waterfall burns more calories than a treadmill. And, of
course, that they will feel much better overall being
outdoors rather than sweating it out in a stuffy weight
room.
That's the program in Georgia, but the idea of
"prescriptions for fitness" is taking off around the
country. The National Environmental Education Foundation
(NEEF), as part of their Children and Nature Initiative, is
holding a series of "train-the-trainer" workshops to educate
pediatric health care providers about prescribing outdoor
activities to children. The program also connects health
care providers with local nature sites, so that they can
refer families to safe and easily accessible outdoor areas,
and it provides Continuing Education Units and a small
stipend for participating doctors.
Unstructured Outdoor Activities Vital To Improving
Children's Health
This is exciting news, and definitely an idea whose time has
come. With so much research indicating that unstructured
outdoor activities may improve children's health by
increasing physical activity, reducing stress, and serving
as a support mechanism for attention disorders, it seems
obvious that health professionals should play a part in
encouraging outdoor play.
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Georgia Department of Public Health Information Service (IS) Group
Update
As the Department of Public Health (DPH) nears its one-year
anniversary as a stand-alone agency, the Information Services
workgroup continues to make strides in addressing the
information service needs of the department and county public
health offices across the state.
The main goal of the Information Services (IS) workgroup is to
help build the infrastructure to get public health's data from
the county offices into a central repository or data warehouse.
DPH Information Services describes the array of data and
technology resources used to support DPH's programs and business
units. For example, if a public health employee needs accurate
and reliable data for program reporting, that falls under
information services. Moreover, if a DPH employee needs a new
computer system to do his or her job that, too, is information
services.
One of the group's first accomplishments was creating a formal
DPH Information Services Governance Council. This IS Governance
Council is chaired by the DPH chief information officer and has
representation from throughout the department, to include two
district health directors, two district MIS directors and key
DPH executive leadership team members, to include the chief
financial officer, chief operating officer, director of health
promotion, director of health protection, and chief of staff.
Collectively, this body's aim is to ensure DPH's information
services needs are met in the most effective and efficient
manner possible.
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Coastal Health District Director of Nursing Presents Findings on HPV
at National Institutes of Health
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(L to R): Betty T. Dixon Dr.P.H., R.N., director,
Nursing and Clinical Services, District 9-1; Rear
Adm., Kerry Paige Nesseler, assistant surgeon
general, United States Public Health Service;
Barbara T. Miller, R.N., B.S.N., retired county
nurse manager, Ware County Health Department and
Ware County Board of Health member; and CAPT Joseph
M. Tonning, M.D., M.P.H., United States Public
Health Service, presently assigned to the U.S. Food
and Drug Administration.
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Betty Dixon, nursing and clinical director for the Coastal
Health District, recently returned from the National Institutes
of Health in Bethesda, Md, where she presented findings on the
administration of the Human Papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine by
Georgia physicians. Dixon's work was selected to be part of the
21st Annual U.S. Public Health service Nursing Recognition Day
sponsored by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
"The purpose of the poster was to present my findings from an
examination Georgia physicians' administration of the
quadrivalent human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine to 11-12 year
old females according to the Advisory Council Immunization
Practices (ACIP) guidelines, their intention to recommend HPV
vaccine to 11-12 year old males, and their perceived knowledge
and barriers associated with HPV vaccination," said Dixon.
HPV is the main cause of cervical cancer in women and also
causes most cases of genital warts in men and women. The Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends the HPV
vaccine for females and males ages 11 through 26.
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Fayette and Oconee Counties Top 2012 Partner Up! for Public Health
Power Ratings
 Fayette
and Oconee counties tied for first place in the Partner Up! for
Public Health Campaign's 2012 Power Ratings of Georgia counties
based on their combined health status and economic vitality, the
Partner Up! campaign announced today. Macon County finished
last.
Funded by Healthcare Georgia Foundation, the Partner Up! for
Public Health Campaign's Health and Economic Power Ratings
combine county-level health outcomes rankings produced by the
University of Wisconsin with economic rankings calculated by the
Georgia Department of Community Affairs (DCA) in connection with
the state's job tax credits program.
The University of Wisconsin program provides health outcomes
rankings for most of the counties in the United States,
including 156 of the 159 in Georgia, based on a variety of
factors, including premature death, the percentage of the
population reporting being in poor or fair health, the number of
work-days missed for reasons of poor mental or physical health,
and the percentage of babies born with low birth weight.
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New Program Guide Available from Office of Child Health
The office of child health, led by director Debbie Cheatham,
consists of multiple programs that provide services to families
with children ranging from birth to 21 years of age. Prompted
by the need to have a current and readily accessible resource
about the various programs for public health staff at state,
district and county levels, the office of child health created a
web-based child health manual consisting of key Internet sites
for each program.
The purpose of this resource, developed at the recommendation of
the Child Health Director, Debbie Cheatham, R.N., M.S., D.N.P.,
is to provide a common tool for the orientation of new DPH
staff. The expectation is that the manual will become an
integrated part of the orientation process, with the program
manager or other appropriate staff member providing direction
regarding which sites are most important for new staff to review
initially and as part of on-going professional development.
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Home
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Local Grads Helping |
Prescription For Nature |
DPHIS Group Update |
Findings On HPV |
Fayette Oconee Partner Up |
Child Health |
PHBRIEFS |
PHNEWS |
PHRECIPE |
PHTRAINING |
PHEVENTS
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