The Ponseti Method and World Clubfoot Day

June 3, 2013 has been designated by the Ponseti International Association as the first World Clubfoot Day to commemorate the birthday of Dr. Ignacio Ponseti [1914-2009], the developer of the Ponseti Method which has been used to successfully treat congenital clubfoot in thousands of infants worldwide through non-surgical means.

A native of Spain, Dr. Ponseti graduated from medical school at the University of Barcelona in 1936, a day before the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, and eventually came to the University of Iowa in 1941 to further his training in orthopedics. He joined Iowa's medical faculty in 1944, where he spent the rest of his career. Clubfoot was one of Ponseti's major research interests, and through longitudinal studies he discovered that surgical interventions were often ineffective if not even more detrimental. With gentle manipulations and a series of plaster casts, however, deformed feet could attain normal appearance and function in a majority of cases.

In 1996, Dr. Ponseti authored Congenital Clubfoot: Fundamentals of Treatment (Oxford University Press), and the 2008 second edition currently is available for download in both English and Spanish. The Ponseti Method is actively being taught to healthcare providers around the world, who are implementing it with high success rates in numerous countries. Further information is available on the Ponseti International Association website. 

Resources for Oil Spill Disasters and Health

As part of its Disaster Information Management Research Center, the National Library of Medicine provides access to disaster management information resources, projects, and programs. One of its newest additions is a set of disaster preparedness and response resources related to crude oil spills and health. This site features sections for current awareness; occupational hazards; dispersants; food contamination; government agencies; wildlife protection; social media; as well as resources from the National Library of Medicine and in foreign languages.

Journal Cancellations Review for UNC Health Sciences Library

The UNC Health Sciences Library (HSL) is preparing for reductions to the FY 2010/2011 acquisitions budget. As a result, we are again reviewing all areas of purchasing and asking publishers to keep price increases to a minimum for 2011. However, the primary strategy for finding reductions is to continue the 2009 comprehensive review of active journal subscriptions. Approximately 95 percent of HSL’s acquisitions budget is spent on journal or database subscriptions. To achieve budget reductions we must lower this recurring annual expense through targeted cancellations.

Last year, 670 users helped us evaluate our subscriptions and we need even more help this year. During the next couple of months we plan to post a list of potential journal cancellations and to ask for feedback. Here is some preliminary information about this review effort, which is also available via the Journal Review homepage:

Cancellation Criteria
Timeline
FAQ

Our goal is the same as for 2009: to keep as much valued content available as possible, minimizing negative impact on our community of users, while still achieving our budget reduction targets. Please keep checking the Journal Review homepage for updates and changes, and your opportunity to provide feedback. We value all feedback received and use it to help make the best decisions possible.

The 2009 review process helped greatly to reduce recurring annual expenses. Through extensive feedback from the UNC Chapel Hill Health Affairs community and beyond, and through aggressive negotiations with journal publishers for better pricing, we were able to cancel only 58 titles. We also implemented other changes to save costs, such as converting more journal subscriptions from print plus online to online only. However, these savings will not carry the HSL through another budget reduction in 2010/2011, so the comprehensive review continues.

While the need to reduce the acquisitions budget is driven partly by current economic conditions, carrying out a journals cancellation review is normal library practice, done most recently in 2009 and 2003. Furthermore, our acquisitions budget cannot keep pace with the annual price increases for journals in the health sciences, as the average cost of a health sciences journal is now $1,400.

First National VIVO Conference: Enabling National Networking of Scientists

Enabling National Networking of Scientists
August 12-13, 2010
New York Hall of Science

The first annual National VIVO Conference, Enabling National Networking of Scientists, will bring together scientists, developers, publishers, funding agencies, research officers, students and those supporting the development of team science. This two day conference will begin with workshops and tutorials for those new to VIVO, those implementing VIVO at their institutions, and those wishing to develop applications using VIVO. Invited speakers will present regarding the Semantic Web, Linked Open Data and the role of VIVO in support of team science. Panelists will discuss adoption and implementation findings. Feedback sessions will engage participants in requirements gathering and brainstorming regarding future network services. Presenters will discuss mapping, social networking, crowd sourcing, support for societies and other national network applications. Learn more at the conference web site.

VIVO is an open source, open ontology, research discovery platform for hosting information about scientists, their interests, activities, and accomplishments. VIVO supports open development and integration of science through simple, standard semantic web technologies. Learn more at the VIVO web site. VIVO is funded by the National Institutes of Health, U24 RR029822.

National Women's Health Week, May 9-15, 2010

Dr. Regina M. Benjamin, Surgeon General, has made the following statement on the importance of celebrating National Women’s Health Week and empowering women to make their health a top priority:

Mother’s Day, May 9, marks the start of National Women’s Health Week, a weeklong observance coordinated by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office on Women’s Health. With the theme “It’s Your Time,” the goal of National Women’s Health Week is to empower women to make their own health a top priority and encourage them to take small, manageable steps to improve their health and reduce their risk for many diseases. On Mother's Day, women across the country will celebrate with family and friends. This year, I also encourage women to celebrate themselves by focusing on their own health and well-being.

The most important steps women can take to improve their health include eating a well balanced, nutritious diet; getting regular physical activity; avoiding unhealthy behaviors, like smoking; and paying attention to mental health. In addition, women should get regular checkups and preventive screenings. May 10 is National Women’s Checkup Day, and I urge all women to make an appointment with their health care professional.

In honor of National Women’s Health Week and National Women’s Checkup Day, more than one thousand events will take place across the country. To find an event near you, visit the National Women's Health Week web site.

During National Women’s Health Week it is important to tell our wives, mothers, grandmothers, daughters, sisters, aunts, and girlfriends to make the time to improve their health, prevent disease, and live longer, healthier, and happier lives. After all, when women take even simple steps to improve their health, the results can be significant and everyone benefits.

Note: The text of President Obama's proclamation of National Women's Health Week is available via the White House web site.

April Is National Minority Health Month

April is National Minority Health Month. Check out the resources offered by the Office of Minority Health (OMH) at the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (HSS), as well as the many health information guides for diverse population groups maintained by MedlinePlus at the National Library of Medicine.

OMH was established in 1986 by the HHS. It advises the Secretary and the Office of Public Health and Science (OPHS) on public health program activities affecting minority groups within the United States. Resources are available online that recognize diverse heritages: Black History Month; Asian American/Pacific Islander Heritage Month; Hispanic Heritage Month; and American Indian Heritage Month.

The OMH also maintains state offices of Minority and Multicultural Health. Contact information for all the state liaisons is available online, including the North Carolina liaison.

At the University of North Carolina, the Minority Health Project works to eliminate health disparities, and provides a guide to minority health-related activities at the university and elsewhere on its web site. In addition, NC Health Info, a service based at the UNC Health Sciences Library, provides much valuable health and medical information for minority groups, as well as links to local health services.

Special Collections at the Health Sciences Library also maintains a digital collection of Community Diagnosis Papers on public health concerns of diverse populations within the state, and is actively digitizing many historical North Carolina public health materials as part of the North Carolina History of Health Digital Collection, an NC ECHO grant-funded project. Additional resources on minority medical care, health and hygiene, among other topics, are discoverable via the online catalog.

EPA Releases Public Database on Risk Assessments

WASHINGTON -- On March 24, 2010, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released the Health and Environmental Research Online (HERO) database, a milestone in transparency. HERO provides access to the scientific studies used in making key regulatory decisions, including EPA’s periodic review of the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) for six major pollutants. It is part of the open government directive to conduct business with transparency, participation, and collaboration.

"The HERO database strengthens our science and our transparency--two pillars of our work at EPA. Giving the public easy access to the same information EPA uses will help open the lines of communication, increase knowledge and understanding, and open the doors of EPA," said EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson. "Americans have a right to know the background of decisions that affect their lives and livelihoods. We're taking a big step forward in opening government to the people.

"The publically accessible HERO database provides an easy way to review the scientific literature behind EPA science assessments, which are used to support agency decision-making. The database includes more than 300,000 scientific articles including the authors, titles, dates, and abstracts. In addition, through a simple keyword search, anyone can see information from the articles that were used to develop specific risk assessments.

HERO includes peer-reviewed literature used by EPA to develop its Integrated Science Assessments (ISA) that feed into the NAAQS review. It also includes references and data from the Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS), a database that supports critical agency policymaking for chemical regulation. Click for more information on the HERO database and the IRIS database.

National Library of Medicine to End Go Local Program

Since 2001, the National Library of Medicine has supported Go Local web sites across the United States. The goal of Go Local was to connect users to health services in their local communities. This seemed like a natural extension to MedlinePlus, which provides health information. In 2001, Go Local was a unique service.

Over the past nine years, the Internet has evolved. Search engines that people use daily, such as Google, Yahoo, and Bing, bring health services listings to users. These sites include provider-level directory information and can collect user reviews that Go Local cannot. Health insurance sites give insured users local practice details, such as hours, fees, parking, and quality ratings based on provider or facility performance measures. To include this granularity in Go Local would not be feasible.

The changed Internet environment, coupled with declining use, has led to a decision by NLM to phase down and end its support for the MedlinePlus Go Local program. Resources are tight throughout our profession and as the internet has moved forward, it no longer makes sense to use scarce resources to compete with machine-based indexing used by the search engines.
NLM is grateful to the hundreds of people whose time, labor, ideas and patience went into creating Go Local. For many years we could proudly point to Go Local as a unique and valuable service to so many people in this country. We will be working with our partners around the country as they make decisions about what to do in their local areas.

Source: Newsletter of the NN/LM Southeastern/Atlantic Region.

Note: In North Carolina, Go Local online resources have been provided by NC Health Info, a service of the UNC Health Sciences Library and collaborators.