Social Media Toolkit for Health

CDC Offers Guidance on Using Social Media To Share Health Care Data

CDC officials recently released the Health Communicator’s Social Media Toolkit, which offers guidance for sharing health information through social media, Federal Computer Week reports.The toolkit includes a chart of social media tools and what organizations need to use the tools. For example, podcasts and widgets require little staff time and can be done with relatively small budgets, while online video production and podcast creation require moderate amounts of staff time and funding.

CDC’s toolkit also includes a list of “Top Lessons Learned from Using Social Media,” compiled from CDC’s experience with several social media tools and websites. The list of lessons includes:

• Adopting low-risk tools — such as podcasts and widgets — first and selecting the most popular social media sites;
• Creating portable content and using mobile device applications to expand reach;
• Facilitating content sharing and encouraging interaction; and
• Establishing realistic goals and not relying on social media to meet all communications needs (Lipowicz, Federal Computer Week, 10/22).

Read more at www.ihealthbeat.org

 

Why US needs healthcare Reforms.

Health care reform is a hot topic these days. What is health care reform? The President, Congress and people like you are talking about it. The simple answer is well, there is no simple answer.

Most Americans i know are not even sure if Healthcare is a fundamental human right ! So talking about “Health care for all” seems too far fetched for them.The argument i hear commonly says that only taxpayers should be given health care assistance and the 46 million or so people without Health insurance can go to Hell ! It seems like a weeding out plan for poverty. ” You don’t have money to buy insurance? Too bad, go sit there in a corner and die”.

All of us shall soon have to come to the conclusion that health rights are equal to Right to life and inability to pay for it cannot be a hurdle. The real problem is not the poor, it is the absurdly rising COST of health care!

A few ways to reduce healthcare costs include

• More Use of Technology
• Empower people with More information
• Payment to care providers to be based on Quality rather than the number of investigations performed. ( This is very basic actually)
• Promote healthier Lifestyle.

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Related articles

• -Why American healthcare is so expensive? (neeleshbhandari.blogspot.com)
• Healthcare and emerging technologies (neeleshbhandari.blogspot.com)
• Better E.M.Rs to attain “Health Rights for All”. (neeleshbhandari.blogspot.com)

 

The male foreskin is dangerous- Circumcision protects .

Health information politicized

Doesn’t the public have the right to know that male circumcision protects against HIV?

In 2007, the ethical landscape surrounding medical male circumcision (MC) suddenly lurched and shifted when the World Health Organization and UNAIDS declared unequivocally that the `efficacy of male circumcision in reducing female to male transmission of HIV has been proven beyond reasonable doubt.The male foreskin has been shown to have a high number of cells that were targeted by the HIV virus

Interestingly, evidence that MC had medical benefits has been mounting for more than 20 years. Not only does the procedure reduce the risk of HIV infection, it also has been shown  to

• prevent urinary tract infections,

• sexually transmitted diseases, and

• penile and prostate cancers.

Researchers have even found that MC reduces the risk of cervical cancer in current female partners . In spite of that growing list of medical benefits, the issue has hovered just below the radar screen until several large randomised controlled studies from Africa showed that circumcision offered a 60% to 70% protective effect against the heterosexual acquisition of HIV. The evidence was so compelling that three of the studies were stopped early, on the recommendation of Data Safety and Monitoring Boards

The Government of India has been reluctant to approach an issue that promises to be controversial among conservative Hindus. MC is
considered a marker of religious identity since Muslims routinely circumcise their male children, and Hindus do not. It has been
suggested that at times, circumcision status may even have been used to identify people`s religious affiliation during communal riots. Popular wisdom holds that even the mention of MC in some communities will trigger sectarian violence. Predictably, some opponents have argued that the greater good of society must be protected by withholding information about MC from the population.

This is a joke, surely?

They wont tell the benefits of circumcision because they want to use it to identify Muslims?

Related articles:

• Circumcision protects against 2 common sexually transmitted diseases: studies
• Call for higher circumcision rate
• The kindest cut?
• Gardasil Debate Shifts As Merck Pushes For Use In Boys, Men