health in the news – Urbanite Health

Health on social

April 30, 2016August 1, 2018mmarinade2

Since social media has been a big part of my internship search, I felt I really needed to start to learn who was doing it effectively. Below are some great findings.

Healthcare Influencer List

I had no idea that there were healthcare influencers! I’ve long been familiar with Johns Hopkins School of Public health, as it’s a top ranked MPH and med school. Here is there Twitter. It was actually a little different than I would think it would be. It was very informative, and personally being in the public health field I thought it was interesting. However, it was really only for public health professionals and those in the research world. It was very research heavy and even I had a hard time understanding their stand alone tweets. Its funny because this was one of the major reasons I passed on the MPH track. It’s all well and good to have interesting information, but if its not tied to strong intervention or communications, its effects are limited. However, I was really impressed with the CDC and APHA, but they have way less followers.

CDC Social media

The CDC had individual accounts for each health aliment which can be found here. I really liked the eHealth and Diabetes accounts. My favorite initiative is the “Public Health Nerd.” A great post is “ Suspect you are a public health nerd?” Very Creative! It doesn’t seem to be well maintained, and some of these posts are from 2013. When I checked Twitter for the#phnerd hashtag, there is a little activity, but very rarely is it linked back to the CDC. However, I’m glad I found it because people do seem to be really excited about public health. Using the hashtag I found some interesting public health Twitter accounts and organizations. There was one especially interesting organization called Lucky Iron Fish.

Also worth checking out is the CDC’s instagram. I was impressed to see they have 200,000 followers! However, some posts were awkward pictures of their campaigns. I was not feeling the below pictures. They are a bit cheesy and it took away from the other amazing posts. My favorite was about a local Ebola Campaign. There was entirely too much text, but I liked the overall idea. Another great example was an up close and personal shot of bacteria.

Since I had three people ask me about my smoothie last Tuesday I figured I would post about it. I get the best smoothies from Nussbaum and Wu and they are super delish. I ask for kale, spinach, a whole banana, 4 pieces of mango, plain yogurt and blueberries. If I’m ever stressed or feel like snacking, I always pop in to get a smoothie. Its funny because when you are stressed your body craves unhealthy snacks, but what you actually need at that moment is something hyper healthful. I’ve read countless articles about nutrition, but here are a few of my favorite topics. Here are two great articles linking nutrition to mental health Huffington Post and Washington Post. Nutrition is probably the most important thing you can monitor every day and that can dictate much of your health status.

John Oliver says ixnay on the “cray cray”

March 12, 2016March 20, 2016mmarinade2

I don’t know anyone who doesn’t love John Oliver. He is the ultimate story teller and oneof my favorite New Yorkers .Here he covers how mental health is portrayed in the media. He uses excellent visuals and evidence to support all of this claims. His sources are fantastic as he is citing studies from Health and Human Services which can be considered reputable government studies. A good thing to remind ourselves is health is much broader than physical health, mental health is just as important. One thing my mom once said once to me is if you don’t have your mental health, you don’t have anything. It truly is the great equalizer.

He states 43.8 million adults in the US have mental health struggles, and 10 million have more serious and advanced issues. He shows the headlines of the studies with short verbatim quotes from each piece. This is an excellent way to report on health studies, but also a great way to frame mental health. There is too much stigma surrounding mental health, particularly if according to these numbers, 13% of the US population may suffer from it. Additionally, instead of just saying its a serious problem, he also works to remove stigma from those who suffer.

Here is SAMSHA’s direct site to get more information on various mental health issues or to find information on treatment options.

Parents can sneak in good eating habits

March 12, 2016April 30, 2016mmarinade2

Another thing that surprised me about NYC was the number of young children and infants floating around the UWS. With the busy and hectic lives of NYC parents, I think that teaching strong eating behaviors is necessary. Living in a city that runs on convenience and has unhealthy food options everywhere, children need to learn how to make the right choices. This is a great NPR article on creating consistency in a young child’s diet.

A second quick and easy read can be found on Wiki. This article highlights steps parents can take with children who are a bit older.