Prepare Your Health: Personal Health Preparedness for People with Bleeding Disorders
March is Bleeding Disorders Month. Learn more about bleeding disorders, their symptoms, treatments, and how to prepare for emergencies on the Division of Blood Disorders website. Personal health preparedness and planning are important for everyone, but essential for people with bleeding disorders. Bleeding disorders, such as hemophilia and von Willebrand disease (VWD), are conditions in which the blood does not clot properly due to a lack of specific clotting factor proteins in the blood. As a result, people with bleeding disorders may experience excessive bleeding after an injury or trauma, or may bleed for no apparent reason at all.
Digging Out: 5 Ways to Prepare Your Health to Shovel Snow
Shoveling snow is strenuous exercise. Just the thought of moving hundreds of pounds of snow and slush is enough to make your legs prickle, to make your arms and shoulders burn, and to make your back tire. Shoveling snow is such strenuous exercise that, according to Harvard Medical School, an 185-pound person can expect to burn about 266 calories after just a half hour of shoveling. Like any physical activity, shoveling snow poses health risks exacerbated, in part, by weather. Not to say it could never happen, but chances are slim that you will ever need to shovel snow in
Health Departments Work Off the Field to Keep Fans Safe, Healthy on Game Day
It's almost game day. Over the course of this week, an estimated 1 million people will visit Atlanta for the Super Bowl LIII experience or to attend the game on Sunday, Feb. 3. A week from now, after the Vince Lombardi Trophy is awarded and the fans head home, things will return to normal. And if everything goes to plan, no one will be the wiser that Georgia's state and local health departments were working behind the scenes-with the support of CDC's Public Health Emergency Preparedness (PHEP) program-to protect the public's health. The PHEP program is a critical source of
Service Beyond Oneself: MRC Volunteers Share Their 'Why'
The Martin Luther King (MLK) Day of Service is an opportunity to help "strengthen communities, bridge barriers, [and] create solutions to social problems" through volunteering. While there are many ways to strengthen your community, one way is to help your community prepare for public health emergencies. Improving community preparedness and responses to public health emergencies is, of course, a principal aim of the CDC's Center for Preparedness and Response-as well as a central focus of the Medical Reserve Corps (MRC), a volunteer organization you may wish to consider if you are looking for a way to get involved in your community. The MRC
5 Practical Skills for the Holiday 'Host(ess) with the Mostest'
It's not easy playing the part of host or hostess with the "mostest" at the holidays. A lot of time, effort, and planning goes into making merry with family and friends. In all the excitement of getting the house and food ready for guests, honest mistakes, minor mishaps, and even life-threatening emergencies can happen. Some accidents are just that ... accidents; others-like turkey fryer fires-are often preventable. You can prepare for all of them. Practical skills and lessons are everyday competencies that you can learn-and teach to others-to prepare your health for and protect people's wellness in an emergency. Here
Operation Shortbread Is Not Your 'Cookie Cutter' MCM Exercise
December 4 is National Cookie Day, which-from a public health perspective-is what makes the scratch-made story of Baltimore County Department of Health and Human Services' Operation Shortbread a fitting one to tell this time of year. What do cookies have to do with public health, you ask? Before we answer that question, let's begin with a brief introduction to the topic of medical countermeasures (MCMs). Medical Countermeasure Readiness In a typical MCM readiness exercise, state and local public health departments will set up a point-of-dispensing location (or POD) and hand out a placebo-sometimes candy-to employees or volunteers as they pass
The Neighborly Thing To Do: States Helping States During Disasters
Since 9/11, the CDC's Public Health Emergency Preparedness (PHEP) cooperative agreement program has been a critical source of funding, guidance, and technical assistance for state and local public health departments, helping to build and maintain a nationwide emergency management system that saves lives through its capability to rapidly respond to threats. But the PHEP program is not just a give-and-take of resources between CDC and PHEP recipients - it also enables public health departments to help one another during major disasters, such as the catastrophic hurricanes of the past two seasons. One mechanism that the federal government uses to streamline
Partnerships Help Save Lives When Disaster Strikes
Public health emergencies occur every day across the United States. Tornadoes, hurricanes, wildfires, floods, infectious disease outbreaks, terrorist attacks, and other emergencies have all occurred within the past few years and likely will happen again. Communities must be ready in the event of a public health emergency - both those they expect and those that come without warning. Since 2002, CDC's Public Health Emergency Preparedness (PHEP) program has provided funding and guidance to 50 states, four cities, and eight territorial health departments across the nation to protect communities. Planning and exercising plans help ensure that health departments are ready to
3 Reasons Why Handwashing Should Matter to You
Most of us are familiar with the parental-like voice in the back of our minds that helps guide our decision-making-asking us questions like, "Have you called your grandmother lately?" For many that voice serves as a gentle, yet constant reminder to wash our hands. Handwashing with soap and water is one of the most important steps you can take to avoid getting sick and spreading germs to loved ones. Many diseases are spread by not cleaning your hands properly after touching contaminated objects or surfaces. And although not all germs are bad, illness can occur when harmful germs enter our
Protecting Our Future: Emergency Preparedness and Children's Mental Health
Among the many lessons learned during the 2017 Hurricane season, we recognized that addressing children's mental and behavioral health needs is a major concern in hurricane-affected areas. CDC's At Risk Task Force (ARTF) was established in 2017 to ensure identification and prioritization of the mental and physical health needs of at-risk populations, including children. ARTF's first Emergency Operations Center (EOC) activation was on Aug. 31, 2017, in response to Hurricane Harvey, the first of three consecutive hurricanes to hit the United States and its territories in a five-week period. ARTF's mission was to address the needs of at-risk populations in
These horrifying pollen clouds remind us it's allergy season
Pollen counts are increasing across the country in recent weeks forecasters at Pollen.com say, which means nearly 50 million Americans will suffer from some combination of a runny nose, watery, itchy eyes or sneezing as their allergy symptoms ramp up, according to the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology.
The US eliminated measles in 2000. The current outbreak could change that
here's a "reasonable chance" the United States will lose its measles elimination status in October because of ongoing measles outbreaks in New York, according to Dr. Nancy Messonnier, director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases.
"It certainly is incredibly frustrating and upsetting to the public health community that we may lose measles elimination status, because we do have a safe and effective vaccine," Messonnier said.
CDC Tracking Program
CT Fish Consumption Advisory