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The Conversation
What’s your community health priority?
We know it’s hard, but if you had to choose just one issue to get additional funding, which would it be? The bottom line is that we’re trying to determine where you feel the greatest needs are right now. What is the most important public health issue in your community? ( ...
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Northwest Health Foundation releases new CHP public opinion poll
Northwest Health Foundation, through its Community Health Priorities Project, has just released new public opinion research conducted by Davis Hibbitts Midghall, revealing areas where Oregonians want health dollars spent. Among the findings: • 84 percent support increasing state funds for farm-to-school programs to provide children with healthier meals • 84 percent support more state money to provide physical education in schools • 71 percent want lawmakers to limit tobacco ...
Is a Soda Tax Paternalism? Victim Blaming?
The CHP Twitter feed recently received a message from @erinashmiller, who tweeted that “taxing junk food violates horizontal & vertical equity, also paternalistic.” The tweet included a link to an article she wrote on agriculture policy wherein she discussed the issue of “fat tax” as violating “horizontal equity.” Soda and junk food tax proposals, she writes, tax prepackaged junk foods, but not equally unhealthy foods consumed by groups in higher income brackets.” This, she ...
Citizens United v. FEC: Is it a public health issue?
Is it a simple defense of free speech as protected by the first amendment, or an egregious example of right-wing judicial activism? While that may be one way of framing the recent Supreme Court ruling “Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission,” the question posed here is simply: “Is it a public health issue?” In other words, what might be the public health impact of this ruling? Citizen’s United lead counsel Ted Olson said the decision “overturns some of the most ...
Oregon Legislators Discuss County Health Rankings
On February 18, Mary Lou Hennrich of Oregon’s Public Health Institute led a discussion for Oregon legislators about the recently released County Health Rankings, which compares Oregon counties against each other in various categories of health outcomes and health factors. Various public health leaders from around the state contributed to the discussion, including officials from Umatilla, Lincoln, Yamhill, Jefferson, and Washington Counties. At the event, Kathleen O’Leary, Chair of the ...
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Blue Zones Vitality Project: Addressing Healthy Environments One Community at a Time
A recent article in Newsweek reports on the town of Albert Lea, Minn., the first American town to sign on to the AARP/Blue Zones Vitality Project—the brainchild of Dan Buettner, author of “The Blue Zones,” which looks at the health habits of the world’s longest-lived people. According to Newsweek, “his goal was to bring the same benefits to middle America—not by forcing people to diet and exercise, but by changing their everyday environments in ways that encourage a healthier ...
Lancet Retraction Good News for Vaccine Advocates – but will it have an effect?
The Lancet, a British medical journal has retracted a 1998 research paper that set off a sharp decline in vaccinations in the United Kingdom when the author, Dr. Andrew Wakefield, suggested that the combined measles, mumps and rubella vaccine can be unsafe vaccines could cause autism. Britain’s General Medical Council has ruled that Dr. Wakefield acted “dishonestly and irresponsibly,” stating that two years before his paper appeared, lawyers seeking to sue vaccine makers paid Wakefield the ...
Abstinence-Only Education Proven Effective
It has been called the first-ever study demonstrating the effectiveness of abstinence-only sex education. A study published in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine of has found that found that abstinence-only sex education helped to delay a group of middle-school students’ sexual initiation The participants’ mean age was 12.2 years; 53.5% were girls; and 84.4% were still enrolled at 24 months. The model-estimated probability of ever having sexual intercourse by the 24-month ...
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Cell Phones - Public Health Issue?
A recent piece in GQ magazine explores a difficult issue for many Americans – many earthlings in fact – to grapple with: the health hazards of cell phones. To suggest that cell phones pose serious and real health threats to human health, or as the article says, “to suggest it might be a very big public-health problem, is like saying our shoes might be killing us.” “Except our shoes don’t send microwaves directly into our brains,” the article continues, “And cell phones do—a ...
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Mout Hood and Tillamook Comm. Colleges Now Tobacco-Free
By Guest Author Katie Fidler Congratulations to Mt. Hood Community College and Tillamook Bay Community College for making their campuses 100% tobacco-free! Both colleges implemented tobacco-free policies in January 2010; No tobacco products of any kind are allowed on their campuses. Information on Mt. Hood Community College’s tobacco-free policy can be found here. Information on Tillamook Bay Community College’s policy will be soon available at their website. There are now four ...
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Public Health Not Held to “Clinical Trial” Standards of Medicine, NY Doc Writes
Public Health Not Held to Same “Clinical Trial” Standards as Medicine, NY Doc Writes A retired pediatrician, in a recent letter to the New York Times about the city’s new salt recommendations, brings up an interesting point. Before the city goes further with its salt recommendations, he writes, “it should evaluate the effects of its requirements on trans fat. Has this step improved cardiovascular health or has it not?” “Drugs are evaluated by controlled clinical trials,” he ...
PSU Study: Tobacco Flavorants are Sweeter than Candy!
Portland State University professor Jim Pankow, has recently published research about flavorants in smokeless tobacco, pointing out, in essence that tobacco companies are using extremely high levels of candy-like flavors to attract young people to their products. The article, “Levels of mint and wintergreen flavorants: Smokeless tobacco products vs. confectionary products,” concludes that the level of flavorants in brand name smokeless tobacco products are, in fact, up to 700 percent ...
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