Friday, July 31, 2015

Legionnaires and Whales - Does Disney Know?

Surprise, surprise.

This is one of the photos that made it into the online NYC Channel 4 coverage of Legionnaires' Disease.



I have no more to say about this one!

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Thursday, July 30, 2015



I might be overstating just a tad, but something ABCNews online did today does its part in misleading the public about a breaking news health issue in New York, and undermining the good work of public health officials and providers.
I'm talking about their online coverage of the Legionnaires Disease incidence in the Bronx.
The ABC headline is straightforward.  . 

An outbreak of Legionnaire’s disease has infected at least 31 in New York City and health officials are racing to figure out the cause.
But then, the literal, physical on-screen story takes leave of accurate health information about the disease by sticking 3 bold hyperlinks to  other stories  into the page whose only link to the Legionnaires story is that they are about human health. 

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To read the rest of this post and others please go to http://healthliteracylab.com/legionnaires-disease-and-brain-eating-amoeba/

Tuesday, July 28, 2015

Alert!: A more readable air quality alert


Not sure if I got the science correct here?  Any suggestions?  


Before:

AIR QUALITY LEVELS IN OUTDOOR AIR ARE PREDICTED TO BE GREATER THAN AN AIR QUALITY INDEX VALUE OF 100 FOR THE POLLUTANT OF GROUND LEVEL OZONE. THE AIR QUALITY INDEX...OR AQI...WAS CREATED AS AN EASY WAY TO CORRELATE LEVELS OF DIFFERENT POLLUTANTS TO ONE SCALE. THE HIGHERTHE AQI VALUE, THE GREATER THE HEALTH CONCERN.

After:

Outdoor air quality will not be healthy today for some people. This is because there will be more pollution from ground level ozone in the air today. 

The Air Quality Index (measure) for today will be higher than 100.
AQI ( what the numbers mean)
Good
0-50
Moderate
51-100
Unhealthy
101-150
Very unhealthy
201-300
Hazardous
301-500
(Borrowed this idea from a nice, full color chart at New York State Environmental Conservation   http://www.dec.ny.gov/cfmx/extapps/aqi/aqi_forecast.cfm )



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National Weather Service Air Quality Alerts - Alert Alert! Impossible Language Sighting

Air Quality Alert for NYC just came over my phone. Bravo to the city for making it available in ASL on my screen.
But you just gotta love the incomprehensible language the National Weather Service provides if you want more info.  http://1.usa.gov/1VL26kj
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AIR QUALITY LEVELS IN OUTDOOR AIR ARE PREDICTED TO BE GREATER THAN AN AIR QUALITY INDEX VALUE OF 100 FOR THE POLLUTANT OF GROUND LEVEL OZONE. THE AIR QUALITY INDEX...OR AQI...WAS CREATED AS AN EASY WAY TO CORRELATELEVELS OF DIFFERENT POLLUTANTS TO ONE SCALE. THE HIGHERTHE AQI VALUE, THE GREATER THE HEALTH CONCERN.
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Dear National Weather Service,
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Friday, July 24, 2015

An Achilles Heal in Crowd Sourced Advocacy

Thank you to all my friends you signed the Change.org -  “Petitioning Secretary of  Health and Human Services and 3 others Protest High Cancer Drug Prices so all Patients with Cancer have Access to Affordable Drugs to Save their Lives”.

I'm writing about a problem with the petition.

When I re-read the list of petition requests and thought about the low health literacy (and other literacies, financial, civic, …) of millions of people in the US I realized, once again, that there’s a huge mis-match that self-limits this and many other ubiquitous and powerful crowd-sourced appeals. I'm referring to the low health literacy of millions. (Read More) 

Monday, July 20, 2015

There Must be 50 Ways a Definition Can Go Wrong

Here are 5 of them:
1.Circular Definition
2.Definition uses overly complex medical/science words/concepts
3.Definition uses overly complex sentence structure
4.Recursive Definition

5. Non-definition Definition 

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