Knapp, Maureen

La. gets a ‘D’ in childhood obesity

A new report from Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge reveals that 36% of Louisiana children ages 10-17 are overweight, and assigns an overall grade of D based on the prevalence of obesity and insufficient exercise programs for young people.

The study, Louisiana’s Report Card on Physical Activity and Health for Children and Youth, will be the focus of the center’s conference starting Wednesday in Baton Rouge to examine solutions to childhood obesity and diabetes. The report is available for free online: http://www.pbrc.edu/report_card/

Interestingly enough, while the Louisiana Council on Obesity Prevention and Management is the conference’s lead sponsor, according to an article in the New Orleans Times-Picayune, the Coca-Cola Bottling Co. was a contributing sponsor and McDonald’s was an in-kind sponsor for the week’s conference.

Both Ariane Rung, PhD, LSU School of Public Health, and Melinda Sothern, PhD, LSU Health Sciences Center New Orleans, were on the Report Card’s Advisory Committee.

More information on the Report from the Times-Picayune:
http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/capital/index.ssf?/base//news-6/122214745657990.xml&coll=1

“Dive of Death”: health effects of inverting the body

What are the health effects of hanging upside down for three days? The American public will soon find out, as magician David Blaine attempts to hang upside down over Central Park from now until Wednesday night.

In medical circles, hanging upside down can also be referred to as inversion therapy: hanging upside down ?óÔé¼ÔÇØ supported by your ankles ?óÔé¼ÔÇØ to allow gravity to naturally decompress disks and nerve roots in your spine. It is generally used to relieve back pain, but studies have found no significant long-term benefit.

The health effects of hanging upside down for prolonged periods of time are interesting. Blood pressure to the head can significantly increase and breathing can be restricted. Hanging upside down can also influence how the body identifies smells.

Disaster Recovery Resources

While the ‘Nagin special‘ may have been a not-so-funny joke to Ike evacuees, these links to disaster recovery resources provide a variety of information for those affected by Hurricane Ike. To our friends in the Houston area (not to mention those locally affected) we wish you a speedy recovery!

American Red Cross – Open shelters & resources
Houston area: http://www.houstonredcross.org/
Baton Rouge Area: http://batonrouge.redcross.org/

City of Houston eGovernment Center
www.houstontx.gov
Links and phone numbers for local emergency information from the City of Houston.

FEMA.gov – Hurricane Ike Information and Resources
http://www.fema.gov/hazard/hurricane/2008/ike/index.shtm
News releases and FEMA progress.
See if your area is a designated county and apply for FEMA assistance:
For Louisiana Residents
For Texas Residents

EMERGENCY.louisiana.gov
http://emergency.louisiana.gov/
Press releases from Louisiana State Government, parish updates, Operation Blue Roof, disaster food stamps, supply distribution centers, road openings & closings, business recovery and more.

Houston Chronicle Home Page
http://www.chron.com/
Neighborhood reports, school & business openings, news, information, photos and multi-media from the Houston area newspaper.

Where’s the Power on? Houston Area (Houston Chronicle)
http://www.chron.com/databases/ikepower.html
Interactive map of Houston area shows where power is on.

Hurricane Ike Information from the New Orleans Times-Picayune
http://www.nola.com/hurricane-ike/
News on Ike from New Orleans’ regional newspaper

Hurricane Ike Consumer Resource Page – Texas Department of Insurance
http://www.tdi.state.tx.us/consumer/storms/cpmhurrike.html
Variety of links and information on insurance providers and disaster assistance for consumers.

Hurricane Ike Resources Blog
http://hurricaneikeresources.org/
Up to date response and relief info. Browse news by parish, state or county. Excellent scope of information for all states effected by the storm.

Louisiana Library Status Blog
http://prepare.lib.la.us/blog/
Tracking the status of libraries in Louisiana in the event of an emergency.

NN/LM Disaster Preparedness
http://nnlm.gov/ep/
Disaster Resources from the South Central region.
Library Updates: http://nnlm.gov/scr/blog/?p=684

Official Site of the City of Galveston
http://www.cityofgalveston.org/
Galveston Conditions Post-Hurricane Ike, what to do if your structure is damaged, reporting damage, etc.

Texas Department of Transportation
http://www.txdot.gov/travel/hurricane.htm
Road conditions and updates.

Texas Responds
http://www.texasresponds.org/Joom/
State of Texas portal for cash or resource donations and registry for volunteer efforts.

Closing at 2pm today

The library will close at 2pm today.

We expect to be open regular hours tomorrow, weather permitting:
Saturday hours: 9:30 a.m. to 6 p.m.

LSUHSC Emergency Notices

Students! Get published in Public Health Reports

Interested in publishing? The Association of Schools of Public Health recently announced that it will begin a peer-reviewed Student Column in the Public Health Reports journal.

Potential submitters may be current students, current fellows, or recent graduates (within two years) of CEPH-accredited schools of public health. ASPH also seeks student reviewers for the column. For more information, visit www.publichealthreports.org.

Off Campus Access Is Down

Off-campus access library resources using your library barcode & password is currently down. Some journals and databases may be unavailable off campus while we address this problem.

In the meantime, you can access the following Intranet resources using your LSUHSC username & password. (Don’t forget to add lsumc-master\ before your username.)

Micromedex: https://intranet.lsuhsc.edu/micromedex/
Ovid: http://ovid.lsuhsc.edu/
PubMed (free version – limited full text): http://www.pubmed.gov

For urgent article or research requests, please email reference@lsuhsc.edu. Your request will be handled by tomorrow morning.

Thanks for your patience while we sort this out!

Debunking Autism theory

An editorial in the New York Times today points to a new case-control study that attempts to replicate the controversial Wakefield study on autism, which in 1998 drew an inferential link between the MMR vaccine, gastrointestinal problems found in many autistic children and autism.

The new study, conducted by researchers from Columbia University, Massachusetts General Hospital and the CDC, tried and failed to replicate the earlier findings. The new study, published in PLoS One, is freely available on the web: http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0003140

We’re open! Welcome back.

The library, along with the rest of campus, resumes normal operations today, Monday September 8th.

Regular Library Hours
Monday – Thursday
8 a.m. to 12 midnight
Friday
8 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Saturday
9:30 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Sunday
1:30 p.m. to 12 midnight

Closed ’til Monday

The library along with the rest of LSUHSC New Orleans Campus will be closed until Monday September 8th at the earliest. Be careful out there!

Off campus library instructions and video.

More campus updates here: http://www.lsuhsc.edu/emergency/

New issue of the Dental Library Newsletter

The Fall 2008 issue of The Library Explorer, the newsletter of the LSUSD Library, is now available at
http://www.lsusd.lsuhsc.edu/libr/Newsletters/Fall08_news/Fall08_news_p1.htm
This issue, our first since returning from Baton Rouge, includes an update on library services, information about Embase (an alternative to MEDLINE for searching the biomedical literature), accessing online journals, recent acquisitions, faculty publications, and more.

If you prefer to print the newsletter, a pdf version is available at
http://www.lsusd.lsuhsc.edu/libr/Newsletters/Fall08_news/08_fall.pdf.

Links to both the html and pdf versions can be found on the library home page:
http://www.lsusd.lsuhsc.edu/libr/

New FCOI tutorial from NIH available

NIH has announced the availability of a Web-based tutorial related to the “Responsibility of Applicants for Promoting Objectivity in Research for which PHS Funding is Sought.”

In its release notice, NIH states, “As part of NIH’s continuing educational efforts to improve and enhance compliance with Financial Conflict of Interest (FCOI) requirements, we developed a Web-based tutorial which reviews the requirements of and the responsibilities for compliance with these Federal FCOI regulations. The tutorial is designed for use by Institutional officials responsible for managing NIH funded grants, cooperative agreements and/or contracts and for individuals who are responsible for the design, conduct or reporting of NIH-supported research.
We hope this tutorial proves to be a useful educational tool and strongly encourage all NIH-funded investigators to take it.”

The tutorial may be accessed on the Office of Extramural Research, Conflict of Interest Page.
LINK: http://grants.nih.gov/grants/policy/coi/tutorial/fcoi.htm

Upcoming OMERAD workshop

Presenting a new event open to all LSUHSC-NO Faculty, Residents, Fellows and Doctoral Students

Developing Educational Scholarship from Everyday Work
Sheila W. Chauvin, M.Ed., Ph.D.
Jack R. Scott, Ed.D., M.P.H.
Office of Medical Education Research and Development, School of Medicine, Louisiana State University Health Science Center
DATE: Thursday, August 28, 2008
TIME: 2:00 p.m. ?óÔé¼ÔÇ£ 5:00 p.m.
LOCATION: ENT Conference Room (Fifth Floor, Clinical Sciences Research Building, 533 Bolivar)
TO REGISTER: Registration is not required, but appreciated to help with planning.
Please call or email the OMERAD (568-2140, omerad@lsuhsc.edu).
WORKSHOP DESCRIPTION
Opportunities for educational research arise from everyday teaching and education activities. For example, does one teaching method produce better learning outcomes than another? Is there relationship between teamwork training and effective teamwork practice in the patient care setting? Does replacing lectures with small group teaching alter learner performance on high stakes, standardized knowledge tests? Similarly, many of the creative and original educational programs and materials that faculty members create in their teaching have promise for peer-reviewed publication and contribution to the field. In this workshop, participants will explore various forms of educational research and scholarship and apply these to their own situation. Individuals will participate in activities to identify a potential project and use a systematic approach to design a plan/protocol for pursuing their educational research/scholarship interest. Participants will also explore publication/dissemination venues they might target for contributing the results of their work to the field. Light refreshments will be served.

Please share this flyer with colleagues.
We hope to see you on August 28th and bring a colleague!

An expanded program of faculty development sessions offered through the OMERAD and the Academy will be disseminated shortly. In the meantime, please contact the OMERAD for more information by calling 568-2140 or sending an email to omerad@lsuhsc.edu.

ActiveSync on iphone & PDA

New directions on configuring a mobile device with ActiveSync are now available on the LSUHSC Intranet:

https://intranet.lsuhsc.edu/postmaster/supporters/e2k3/ActiveSyncDevice.htm

4 things you didn’t know about Louis Armstrong

Planning to go to Satchmo Summerfest this weekend? “Satchmo” is one of the nicknames of Louis Armstrong, who is widely recognized as a founding father of jazz. This Friday through Sunday a free festival in the French Quarter celebrates Satchmo’s legacy.

Here’s some interesting health sciences related facts about Louis Armstrong:

RefWorks class is full!

Better luck next time!

The RefWorks class next Wednesday, Aug. 6th from 3-4pm is now full. We will have another class on this awesome bibliographic management solution sometime in late September/early October.

In the meantime, there are online instruction opportunities available.