Category Archives: Video
Video: What is Walkability?
Got five minutes? Spend it viewing a recent video on walkability from Dan Burden, a reigning expert, who took NewPublic Health on a walkability audit of San Diego during the recent New Partners for Smart Growth Conference. Burden is executive director of the Walkable and Livable Communities Institute.
The video is a veritable travelogue for walking as the best possible way to get around locally. Burden discusses metrics, safety features and fixes to current streets while video scenes, including happy walkers of all shapes and sizes, flash on screen. Burden makes some pivotal points about walkability, including creating destinations for walkers, adding landscaping to enhance the enjoyment of the walk, and making changes to traffic technology such as replacing some lights with traffic circles to improve safety for drivers, walkers and bikers.
Walkable 101: The Basics from Martin County CRA on Vimeo.
How walkable is your community? Try this checklist from the Pedestrian and Bicycle Information Center, a national clearinghouse.
Did You Celebrate Global Handwashing Day?
Across the globe on October 15, children and international health organizations celebrated Global Handwashing Day with educational events, school handwashing competitions – and plenty of handwashing videos. Since its inception in 2008, which was designated as the International Year of Sanitation by the United Nations General Assembly, Global Handwashing Day has been reinforcing the call for improved hygiene practices worldwide.
Handwashing with soap is among the most effective and inexpensive ways to prevent diarrheal diseases and pneumonia, which together are responsible for the majority of global child deaths. Every year, more than 3.5 million
children do not live to celebrate their fifth birthday because of diarrhea and pneumonia.
Handwashing is a serious issue, but videos from across the world aim to make handwashing fun for kids. View a sampling of videos, from silly to serious, below.
This video from the Global Public-Private Partnership for Handwashing offers a look at handwashing from Africa, Asia and Latin America.
UNICEF posted this video by Rose Akwasi, age 19, from the Solomon Islands, asking, "Do you know where those hands have been?"
In past years, UNICEF recruited the popular Australian children's music entertainers, The Wiggles, to spread the message of clean hands:
UNICEF Japan also used dance and song to show kids how to wash their hands properly, with a dance choreographed by renowned Japanese dancer Kaiji Moriyama. The dance has almost no verbal instruction, making it easy for children of any age to learn the steps for proper handwashing.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention offer more resources on handwashing here.
A Movement for Quality Care
Relative to other countries, U.S. health care is high in cost and low in quality. We spend more per person on health care than any other country, but there is still a massive divide between the high quality of care the U.S. health care system can deliver and the uneven quality it actually provides. Recently, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) and TV’s Dr. Mehmet Oz partnered on Care About Your Care, a month-long effort to spark conversation on improving the quality of health care in this country.
On Thursday, September 15, national health care representatives including Carolyn Clancy, M.D., Director of the HHS Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality and Farzad Mostashari, M.D., S.c.M., the HHS National Coordinator for Health Information Technology gathered in Washington, D.C. to celebrate the progress of this new quality movement. Communities nationwide joined by webcast to share some local successes in quality care:
- In Cincinnati, the Chamber of Commerce convened doctors, patients, nurses, businesses, health plans, public health, health systems to work towards better health, better care and lower costs, emphasizing the important role of employers in this process.
- In Bangor, Maine, a care management team made up of registered nurses, health coaches and social workers used health information technology to improve communication with hospitals and take measures to reduce readmission rates, as part of the Bangor Beacon Community.
- In Seattle, Washington, a physician from the University of Washington Medicine Neighborhood Clinics talked about how useful it is for providers to see data from their electronic medical records to be able to see how they’re doing. “You cannot improve what you can’t measure.” His clinic also put systems and care teams in place to improve the quality of care in diabetes management, cancer screening and more.
- One woman shared her story of a family struggle with diabetes, and her decision to participate in the Oakland County OakFit employee wellness program with a free, 8-week course on her lunch hour, leading her to lose weight and improve her health.
Hear more from Risa Lavizzo-Mourey, M.D., M.B.A., president and CEO of RWJF and TV’s Dr. Oz about the Care About Your Care initiative and community efforts to ensure consistent, quality care across the country.
Care About Your Care Video
Learn More About the County Health Rankings
Yesterday’s release of the 2011 County Health Rankings clearly shows that where we live matters to our health. The health of a community depends on many different factors including individual health behaviors, education, jobs, quality of health care and the environment. The comprehensive collection of 50 state reports helps community leaders see that where we live, learn, work, and play influences how healthy we are and how long we live.
CountyHealthRankings.org is the full repository of data and information about the rankings. The site includes:
- Listings for every state and every county and their health factors and health outcomes
- Information about ranking methods
- Action steps to help you make YOUR county a healthier place
- A spot to share stories of how the rankings are inspiring your community to make changes
A Video Welcome From Michelle Larkin
Michelle Larkin, J.D., M.S., R.N., Public Health Team Director at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, introduces NewPublicHealth.Org, a new online digital destination where a wide range of health leaders can share health stories, challenges and innovations - all in real time.
