Take APHA's Flu Near You Challenge!

Are you ready to win and help better track the flu? Well, today's your lucky day.

At the Contagion Project event, which was held last night at the convention center, APHA officially launched its Flu Near You Challenge. Here's how it works: APHA's Get Ready campaign has partnered up with HealthMap and the Skoll Global Threats Fund to help track flu cases via a new online tracking tool known as Flu Near You. People use the online flu surveillance tool to report their flu symptoms and help create a dynamic map of the flu and its spread. Pretty neat, huh? In fact, these kinds of online surveillance tools — such as Google Flu Trends — are quickly emerging as a revolutionary way for public health practitioners to keep track of disease trends in as close to real time as possible.

So, what about the winning part, you say? Well, APHA and its partners want millions of people to take part in Flu Near You and that's where you come in. We want you to recruit as many people as possible who are willing to report their symptoms on a weekly basis via Flu Near You surveys. The top individual recruiter can win $25,000 at next year's APHA Annual Meeting and the top group recruiter can win $50,000 — no kidding!! Eligible participants must be 18 years of age and active APHA members through the end of the challenge. For all the challenge details, visit APHA's Flu Near You Challenge site or stop by the Get Ready booth at the Public Health Expo.

APHA announced the challenge during a lively session featuring a discussion with Larry Brilliant, a scientific consultant on the recent movie "Contagion," president of the Skoll Global Threats Fund and former executive director of Google.org. Brilliant showed clips from "Contagion," discussed his experience in helping to bring accurate public health storylines to the movie as well as his thoughts on the possibility of a global disease outbreak similar to the one that unfolded in "Contagion."

"This movie was not made for you," Brilliant told APHA Annual Meeting attendees. "It was made to celebrate you."

Register for the challenge before the Closing Session, which is 2 p.m. on Wednesday, and be entered to win an iPad.

For more on the Flu Near You Challenge, click here. For a behind-the-scenes look at "Contagion," check out this article from The Nation's Health.

— K.K.

Happy Halloween!

Why no costumes APHA-ers? It's Halloween!

P.S. I don't think that witch is wearing a seat belt. Someone call the injury prevention folks!

Photo courtesy iStockphoto

There's a whole lot of research going on

Public health research is on full display at APHA’s poster sessions in the back section of the Public Health Expo. And despite the fact that presenters don’t have quite as much swag as your typical expo booth, these ladies and gentlemen offer some great food for thought on the latest public health research, policy considerations and health trends. The poster sessions cover nearly every health topic imaginable — this is a must see for old and new public health practitioners alike.

With the emphasis of Sunday’s Opening Session on the current crossroads in public health, you can’t help but stand in awe of all the critical work being done by health organizations and public health researchers on today’s most pressing issues as you walk the rows of posters on display.

Catherine Morrison is presenting research that aims to “better connect public health and Alzheimer’s.” Her research demonstrates that Alzheimer caregivers experience greater stress and health problems than other caregivers and according to Morrison, “Alzheimer’s is an under-recognized public health crisis, with nearly 5.4 million Americans living with the disease.” In addition to Morrison’s research, the Alzheimer’s Association has a second poster showing state policies that address Alzheimer’s and recommends public health involvement in guiding future plan development that involves using the 10 Essential Public Health Services framework.

Other featured posters include research on upstream intergenerational communication to increase positive health messages among black families; assessing birth outcomes of mothers living with HIV who go without prenatal care; and a study of how mobile applications have a significant role in injury prevention and emergency preparedness.

So when you have a chance, take a stroll through the poster sessions to learn more about these and other featured research studies.

— M.S.

Photos by Mira Schainker

Monday's Have You Heard — Special Halloween Edition!

Brains!: While there (probably) won't be any brain-eating zombies at this session, the presenters at session 3032, "What We Eat in America," will be discussing all the unhealthy foods we should be eating less of. Join them at 8:30 a.m. (in the safety of daylight) in the Grand Ballroom North of the Renaissance Hotel.

Monster media: Get your good public health works in the news with tips from session 3119, "Media Advocacy: Breaking Through the Crowded News Cycle," from 10:30 a.m. to noon in room 156 of the convention center. Panelists include Washington Post reporter Sarah Kliff and MSNBC.com and Today.com medical reporter Rita Rubin.

Just say boo!: Join Gil Kerlikowske, director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, at session 3310, "APHA President Session, 2011 National Drug Control Strategy: A Public Health Approach," at 2:30 p.m. in Renaissance Ballroom West B in the Renaissance Hotel.

Rocky Horror Public Health Picture Show: Feel like watchin' a movie? Then the Public Health Film Festival has all your visual delights, with public health offerings from here at home and abroad. Click here for a schedule of this year's film festival sessions.

Evil eye: Just kidding folks --- nothing but good vibes around here for APHA's Vision Care Section In fact, you should stop by the group's Dessert Reception and Champagne Toast honoring APHA President-elect Mel Shipp from 9 to 11 p.m. in Constitution Ballroom A of the Grand Hyatt. Congrats President Shipp!

Treats, not tricks

Six staff members of the American Legacy Foundation spent an hour a day for six days gathering cigarette butts within a block radius of their D.C. office. Correctly guess how many cigarette butts are in the giant glass jar at their booth in the Public Health Expo and you’ll win a Kindle. Pretty cool, huh?

Legacy staff member Tina Morgan said she counted the butts herself (wearing a hazmat suit), and the idea of the exhibit is to draw attention to the environmental impact of tobacco use.

In some of the most creative twists on social marketing out there, a myriad of booths are offering fun public health swag (pocket-sized hand sanitizer containers, flashing signal lights, personalized breath mints and colorful ballpoint pens as far as the eye can see). Georgia Southern University has packs of peanuts, the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine has a brain-shaped stress ball and the Department of Health Sciences at the University of Alaska-Anchorage is giving out packets of Forget-Me-Not seeds. Hey, it’s the state flower.

Admittedly no competition for the lively Vita-Mix demonstration going on in the next booth, two guys from the U.S. Food Safety and Inspection Service are offering a wealth of food safety information for special populations. Considering yesterday’s foul weather, the “Consumer’s Guide to Food Safety: Severe Storms & Hurricanes” caught this blogger’s eye. Did you know a refrigerator will keep food safely cold for about four hours and a full freezer for about 48 hours? But only if you don’t open the door.

The D.C. Department of Health ran out of “condom-mints” early in the day but hopes those who picked up the packages featuring one condom and two mints will take that idea back to their communities.

If you work in public health, stop by the This is Public Health booth to help out with their latest project, “I am Public Health.” They’re collecting profiles of public health professionals as a way to show those interested in the field what they can do with a public health degree.

The Beautiful Minds booth has life-sized photos of inspiring older Americans, such as 75-year-old Ernestine Shepherd of Baltimore, who transformed herself “from an average, middle-aged woman with a sedentary lifestyle into the World’s Oldest Performing Female Bodybuilder by Guinness World Records.”

The Office on Women’s Health booth has heart-shaped refrigerator magnets emblazoned with the signs of a heart attack. Central Michigan University has tire gauges and you can’t help but ask what’s behind the “Sex, Drugs and Mosquito Nets” tote bags at the Boston University School of Public Health booth.

The Public Health Expo runs from 9:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Monday and Tuesday and from 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. on Wednesday. What’s your favorite booth?

— D.C.

Above, a visitor at the This is Public Health booth at the Public Health Expo. Photo by Donya Currie

Book 'em Daschle

Former Sen. Tom Daschle must have posed for hundreds of photos during Sunday afternoon’s book signing for “Getting it Done: How Obama and Congress Finally Broke the Stalemate to Make Way for Health Care Reform.”

“He has always kept true to his beliefs, and he’s really been an advocate for the right things,” said Cecelia Rokusek, who as a University of South Dakota student campaigned for Daschle. “He probably is one of the greatest leaders of our time.”

Oscar Alleyne said he bought the book and had his photo snapped with Daschle because he was “excited to meet a national leader who understands what we do in public health.”

Daschle graciously shook hands and posed for photo after photo with his admirers, some who were so flustered they almost walked away without the book. He asked two young public healthers, “So, what are your plans?” and listened with a delighted expression to each person.

“He’s a great guy,” APHA Executive Director Georges Benjamin said as he walked by the book signing.

Pete Stewart, of Lake Worth, Fla., said Daschle is “what politicians should represent.”

Sarah Patrick was state epidemiologist in South Dakota when Daschle was senator and called him “a champion for the vulnerable. He has long lived many of the goals and aspirations of APHA.”

Cherry Morange had Daschle sign a book for her 72-year-old brother, Arnold, a long-time Daschle fan who’s battling prostate cancer.

“This is something that will be a memory forever,” Morange said with a grin.

Daschle said he admired his admirers.

“I’m in awe of so many people who are here because they’ve committed their lives to the cause, and that’s inspiring to me,” he said. “It really means a lot.”

And will we see universal coverage in America?

“I think necessity is going to drive it,” Daschle said. “We just have to create a far more efficient, far more equitable and far more accessible system than the one we have.”

— D.C.

Above, Tom Daschle smiles for the camera with a fan during his book signing at the Public Health Expo. Photo by Donya Currie

Join the movement!

It's never too early to get a head start on next year's National Public Health Week celebration, which will take place April 2–8 with a theme of "A Healthier America Begins Today: Join the Movement!" Visit the National Public Health Week site today to download a brochure about next year's observance and sign up to receive free email updates. You can also visit the National Public Health Week booth, #4100, in the Public Health Expo.

'Stand up and insist on the impossible'

Watch videos from this year's Opening Session on APHA's YouTube channel!



Community. It was the thread that tied this afternoon's Opening Session together. Whether it was mental illness, health policy, social justice, health reform or the nation's natural wonders, it all came back to community — back to the notion that we all rise and fall together, that together we can shape our futures into better ones.

First up: Healthy communities promote healthy minds. That's where Pamela Hyde, administrator of the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, came in to make the case that behavioral health is today's No. 1 public health challenge. By 2020, she said, mental health and substance abuse disorders will surpass all physical diseases as a major cause of disability worldwide, and more than half of U.S. adults will develop at least one mental illness in their lifetimes. In addition, drug-related deaths now outnumber traffic fatalities, and deaths by suicide outnumber homicides and deaths from HIV/AIDS. One suicide happens in the United States every 15 minutes. (Wow. This blogger had no idea.)

Fortunately, community-based approaches do make a difference, Hyde said. Unfortunately, the majority of Americans living with mental illness and substance abuse disorders do not get the treatment they need. While most Americans know at least something about things like first aid and basic nutrition, most don't know the signs of addiction and mental illness. But we want to change that, Hyde told attendees, we want to take a public health approach to the problem and begin a national dialogue.

"We want to engage you around this wicked problem," she said. "There is no health without mental health."

Next up: Healthy communities promote healthy bodies. Introducing Jonathan Jarvis, 18th director of the National Park Service. Now, you're probably asking yourself: What's this park ranger doing at the Opening Session? Well, it turns out the National Park Service wants to help you prevent poor health (and forest fires, of course.)

"There is a connection between our public lands and public health," Jarvis said, adding that the agency is now engaged in efforts to bring the outdoors into the public health discussion.

A few of those efforts include a pilot program that encourages park concessioners to offer nutritious, locally grown food; Park Prescriptions, which provides materials to health professionals that they can pass along to patients about places to enjoy the outdoors (Jarvis said he likes to call the effort "take a hike and call me in the morning"); and Let's Move Outside, a campaign administered by the U.S. Department of Interior. Today, Jarvis said, the National Park Service is seeking new partnerships in the health community to help strengthen the connections between public lands and the opportunities for better health.

"When you consider the power of the outdoors...you simply cannot come up with a health care investment that will yield a better return," he said.

Now it's time to tie it all together: Advocacy promotes healthy communities, minds and bodies. This may be the most frustrating part, especially in today's political climate. Luckily, we're witnessing transformative changes thanks to the passage of the Affordable Care Act, said session speaker Tom Daschle, former U.S. Senate majority leader. While we've still not convinced all Americans that "good health should be a right, not an option," there is consensus on a number of issues, such as the lack of transparency in the health system and the need for payment reform, he said. Whether we're successful in bringing prevention, health and wellness to all will depend on five factors, Daschle said: resiliency, innovation, engagement, advocacy and collaboration.

"We need you," he urged attendees. "The question is, will you be here?"

We will if APHA President Linda Rae Murray has anything to do about it.

"Stand up and insist on the impossible," she told Opening Session attendees. "Demand freedom now, demand peace now, demand justice now."

So, fair readers, what did you think of this year's Opening Session?

P.S. Check out videos from this year's Opening Session at APHA's YouTube channel.

P.P.S. Check out more Opening Session coverage over at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's NewPublicHealth.org.

— K.K.

Above, from top to bottom: Opening Session speakers Tom Daschle, Jonathan Jarvis and Pamela Hyde. Photos courtesy Jim Ezell/EZ Event Photography