OMHHE Weekly Newsletter  
March 15 - 21, 2015  

In This Issue
Upcoming Events
Webinar: Who's Leading the Leading Health Indicators? Mental Health
March 19, 2015, 12 - 1 PM ET
Register here!

Hayward Promise Neighborhood: Wrapping Children in Coordinated Educational & Health Supports from Cradle to College to Career
March 19, 2015,
3 - 4:15 ET
Register here!

Webinar: Rural Population Health Learning Collaborative
March 23, 2 PM ET
Click here to register!

Smiles Across America Webinar: The New Drink Pyramid
March 25, 2015, 2 PM ET
Register here!

Webinar: Impact of a Rural Health Network
March 26, 2015
Register here!

Effective Strategies to Improve Health Care for Hispanics in our Local Communities
March 27 - 29, 2015
Washington D.C. 
Click here to register!

Webinar: Impact of a Community Health Center (FQHC) or Rural Health Clinic
April 30, 2015
Registration Details Coming Soon!

National Rural EMS Conference: Building Collaboration and Leadership for the Future
May 5-6, 2015
Cheyenne, Wyoming
Funding Opportunities
Appalachia Culture of Health Research
RAC

Tribal Sexual Assault Services Program (Tribal SASP)
RAC

BUILD Health Challenge - Community Health Collaborations
Multiple Funders

Supporting Community Health Resources - Building Capacity, Expanding Access, and Improving Population Health Grant Program
DHMH/MCHRC

Understanding and Promoting Health Literacy
National Institutes of Health

Innovations for Healthy Living - Improving Minority Health and Eliminating Health Disparities
RAC

Rural Health Care Services Outreach Program
HRSA

Healthy, Active Native Communities Capacity Building Funding Opportunity
RAC
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Has your faith-based organization joined  Virginia's 100 Congregations for Million Hearts yet?  T
he #MillionHeartsChallenge is in full swing with a goal to sign up 100 Virginia congregations during 2015.  Invite your faith-based organization on board today! All denominations and geographical  locations welcome! Check out the website to learn more!
General Information

Join the 1Day Stand Against Smoking and Tobacco Use on March 18, 2015!

More than 1,514 campuses nationwide have a 100 percent smoke- or tobacco-free policy in place. Through the Fresh Air Campus Challenge and the TFCCI Challenge, the Tobacco-Free College Campus Initiative is encouraging campuses to

take a 1Day Stand on March 18 to celebrate the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids' KickButtsDay (KBD)! Building on KBD's mission of helping people kick the habit for one day, the 1Day Stand calls upon college campuses to adopt a tobacco-free policy for one day.


By hosting a 1Day Stand event at your campus, you can start a conversation that ends in a safer and healthier campus for all. The goals for the event are to:

  • Encourage students who use tobacco to quit for the day, with an aim to quit for good
  • Raise awareness of the benefits of tobacco-free campus policies
  • Promote the adoption of permanent smoke- and tobacco-free campus policies

Is your campus taking a 1Day Stand on March 18? If so, please register your event to receive updates and information. Click HERE to register.


On-Demand Continuing Education Webinars Available for Nurses, Nurse Practitioners and Nurse Educators

AHRQ offers Web-based continuing education for nurses, nurse practitioners, case managers, staff educators and nurse practitioner faculty. Eligible professionals can view recorded webinars that highlight resources such as the National Guidelines Clearinghouse, the Electronic Preventive Services Selector and the Improving Patient Safety in Long-Term Care Facilities training modules. The webinars offer practical insights on how these resources can be integrated into education and practice.  Registration is open.

Health Equity 
Racial equity report card: Progress seen, with work left to be done
Duluth News Tribune, March 13, 2015

A review of a biennial racial equity report card for Minnesota legislators became a call to action for a group of more than 40 people gathered Friday afternoon at Myers-Wilkins Elementary School in Duluth.

 

Community activist Henry Banks spoke about some of the items on his wish list to help communities of color in Duluth: more funding for afterschool programs in the Hillside and Lincoln Park neighborhoods, the opening of a center on African heritage, and a Northland office for the Council on Black Minnesotans.
Read more here!

Think Progress, March 12, 2015

If left untreated, depression can exacerbate the risk of poor nutrition and obesity among low-income people who live in food deserts - neighborhoods with limited access to healthy food and fresh produce - a recent study has confirmed.

 

Researchers followed more than 600 participants in a Pittsburgh food assistance program who bought food for their families. They found a strong correlation between depression, poor nutrition, and high body mass index - the estimate of the body fat based on the height and weight. The study, however, didn't explicitly show that depression caused unhealthy eating habits. 

Read more here!

When Life Overwhelms, This Group Lends A Healthy Hand
NPR, March 12, 2015

Ella Barnes-Williams is dealing with a lot right now.

 

For starters, her government-subsidized house in Northeast Washington, D.C., leaks when it rains. She points at a big brown splotch on the ceiling.

 

"It's like mold, mold, mold all over," she says. "I've got to clean that now 'cause that just came back."

Read more here!
Cultural Health 
Translators help immigrants with cultural interpretations 
The Hamilton Spector, March 15, 2015

 

If you're a refugee or an immigrant who can't yet speak English and you must see a doctor, how do you describe your symptoms?

 

It's a tough situation, but 15 translator/interpreters who graduated from the first Hamilton Urban Core Community Health Centre cultural interpretation course on Friday are eager to help out in such situations. The graduates faced similar experiences on arriving in Canada and are enthusiastic about smoothing the way for others.

 

Urban Core cross cultural health care trainer Tibor Lukacs says the graduates represent 19 languages, including Albanian, Arabic, Cantonese, Hungarian, Mandarin, Polish and Russian. 

Read more here!

Nurses Have To Translate When Medical Devices Fail To Communicate
NPR, March 13, 2015

Walk past a patient's hospital room, and the flashing control panels on devices by the bed might make you think you're peering at the cockpit of a 737.

 

Medical technology can make patient care better and more precise. But the gadgets and computers can cause trouble, too. One big problem is that most of the devices can't communicate with one another.

 

The ultimate technological goal is what the engineers call interoperability. Let the ventilators, IV pumps, heart monitors and computers holding patient records communicate and update one another automatically.

Read more here!
Rural Health
Rural hospitals, beset by financial problems, struggle to survive
Washington Post, March 15, 2015

Despite residents' concerns and a continuing need for services, the 25-bed hospital that served this small East Texas town for more than 25 years closed its doors at the end of 2014, joining the ranks of dozens of other small rural hospitals that have been unable to weather the punishment of a changing national health-care environment. 

Read more here!

Independent hospital thrives despite corporate health care 
The Herald-Times, March 12, 2015

Small-town Greene County General is one of just 29 county-owned and independent hospitals left in Indiana, where money woes and trouble recruiting doctors have resulted in mergers and takeovers by bigger and more financially stable medical networks.

 

"We're completely independent," Chief Executive Officer Brenda Reetz told The Herald-Times (http://bit.ly/1Bti1wf ), pride in her voice.


Minnesota's Essentia discovers that, in rural medicine, creativity is often the cure
Star Tribune, March 14, 2015

To understand the latest challenges of rural medicine, meet Matt Smolen. He has multiple sclerosis, which has spread through his 6-foot-4 frame, stranding him in a wheelchair, slurring his speech and contorting his hands into claws.

 

Flare-ups of the disease and related bladder infections sent Smolen, 46, to the hospital 17 times between April 2012 and March 2014. Then he enrolled in a research project run by Essentia Health, where nurse Sandi Kari coordinates all his medical care and personal needs.

Read more here!

"We Have No Place To Hold Them:" Rural Counties Struggle With Those Detained In Mental Health Crisis 
Wyoming Public Radio, March 13, 2015

If you want to get the full picture of how the Title 25 process works in Wyoming you need to talk to Chel Bleckler. That's because she spent over a decade working in an E.R. in Cody, where a big part of her job was working with Title 25 patients.

 

"Usually they came in with the police," she said sitting on the couch of a counseling office in Cody. "And you could always tell the ones because they were crying or they were mad or they were handcuffed."

Read more here!

Region faces escalating medical need, responds with community-based initiatives
Appalachian Voices, December 19, 2014

Some days people meet The Health Wagon at the Lee County airport in southwest Virginia. Other days, it's the community center in Dickenson County, or a local church.

 

No matter where the mobile clinic vehicle pulls up, local residents step into a small waiting area, where they are greeted by a local volunteer before heading to one of the clinic's two exam rooms to meet with a nurse-practitioner for a donation-based or free medical appointment.

 

Nearly 25 years after Sister Bernie Kenny first traveled the mountain roads in a Volkswagen Beetle bringing healthcare to those in need, her ministry has grown into a full-fledged southwest Virginia nonprofit organization with two stationary facilities and two mobile units. 

Read more here!

Rural Hospitals, One Of The Cornerstones Of Small Town Life, Face Increasing Pressure
Kaiser Health News, March 17, 2015

Despite residents' concerns and a continuing need for services, the 25-bed hospital that served this small East Texas town for more than 25 years closed its doors at the end of 2014, joining the ranks of dozens of other small rural hospitals that have been unable to weather the punishment of a changing national health care environment.
Tools and Resources
The White House recently published My Brother's Keeper Task Force document which provides the one year progress on the initiative to address disparities among young men of color. The Women of Color Health Data Book, Fourth Edition was released last month by the NIH Office of Research on Women's Health, which leads the development of this collection and presentation of data on race/ethnicity and disease.  A webinar recording is now available for the 2014 Update of the Rural-Urban Chartbook from Rural Health Research & Policy Centers. The Virginia Department of Behavioral Health & Developmental Services recently released the CLAS Academy Training Catalog.