Health Social Media Web Sites – Advice and Tips for Creators and Others

(Quora’s About Page…including  Use boards to organize anything you read or think about)

I‘ve started this Health Social Media Web Sites board over at Quora.

Suggestions/advice welcome!

Junk food marketing to children: how it works and the price we pay

Pursuit of Public Health

I have written about the behavior shaping role of the entertainment and news media before, but of course, marketing plays a huge role too. And the behavior shaping role of marketing has been in the spotlight this past month, specifically in the context of marketing of junk food to children. Between the continual delays and watering down of what are alreadycompletely voluntary recommended nutrition standards for marketing foods to kids (composed by the Federal Trade Commission’s Interagency Working Group on Food Marketed to Children) and the release of a study revealing that popular cereal brands “pack more sugar than snack cakes and cookies”, it seems like a good time to take a closer look at the world of fast food and junk food marketing to kids.

As the Prevention Institute points out:

*The food and beverage industry spends approximately $2 billion per year marketing to children.

View original post 727 more words

Your Tax Dollars at Work – SuperTracker Looks Up Nutrition Info, Tracks/Compares Food to Your Targets, Tracks Physical Activities, and More

Food-A-Pedia > Look up nutrition info for over 8,000 foods and compare foods side-by-side. Type in your food here Select food category  All Foods  My Favorite Foods  Beverages  Breads, Cereals & Bakery Items  Pasta & Rice  Fruits  Vegetables  Dairy  Meat, Poultry, Fish & Eggs  Meals & Entrees (Mixed Dishes)  Snacks  Fast Foods  Sweets & Desserts	Food Tracker > Track the foods you eat and compare to your nutrition targets. Type in your food here Select Food Category  All Foods  My Favorite Foods  Beverages  Breads, Cereals & Bakery Items  Pasta & Rice  Fruits  Vegetables  Dairy  Meat, Poultry, Fish & Eggs  Meals & Entrees (Mixed Dishes)  Snacks  Fast Foods  Sweets & Desserts	Physical Activity Tracker > Enter your activities and track progress as you move. Type in your activity here Select food category  All Activities  My Favorite Activities  Walking & Running  Conditioning  Sports  Home  Occupation  Other
My Weight Manager > Get weight management guidance; enter your weight and track progress over time.	My Top 5 Goals > Choose up to 5 personal goals; sign up for tips and support from your virtual coach.	My Reports > Use reports to see how you are meeting goals and view your trends over time.

From the 22 December USDA news Release

WASHINGTON, Dec. 22, 2011 – Just in time to help Americans keep their New Year’s resolutions by making healthy food and physical activity choices, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack today releasedUSDA’s new nutrition SuperTracker. The SuperTracker is a comprehensive, state-of-the-art resource available at ChooseMyPlate.gov designed to assist individuals as they make changes in their life to reduce their risk of chronic disease and maintain a healthy weight. Release of this new web tool comes as USDA highlights the second in a series of themed consumer messages supporting the MyPlate icon – Enjoy Your Food, But Eat Less – that USDA is promoting the next three months in conjunction with more than 5,000 organizations participating in the MyPlate Nutrition Communicators Network.

“Overcoming the health and nutrition challenges we face as a nation is critical and the SuperTrackerprovides consumers with an assortment of tools to do just that,” said Vilsack. “This easy-to-use website will help Americans at all stages of life improve their overall health and well-being as they input dietary and physical activity choices into the tool. During the holiday season we are surrounded by good food and this is a perfect time to Enjoy Your Food, But Eat Less.”

The SuperTracker is a visually appealing, comprehensive, state-of-the-art resource available atChooseMyPlate.gov. It is designed to assist individuals as they make changes in their life to reduce their risk of chronic disease and maintain a healthy weight. Consumers can access this free, on-line tool at anytime and can choose a variety of features to support nutrition and physical activity goals.SuperTracker offers consumers the ability to:

• Personalize recommendations for what and how much to eat and amount of physical activity.
• Track foods and physical activity from an expanded database of foods and physical activities.
• Customize features such as goal setting, virtual coaching, weight tracking and journaling.
• Measure progress with comprehensive reports ranging from a simple meal summary to in-depth analysis of food groups and nutrient intake over time.
• Operationalize the 2008 Physical Activity Guidelines.
• Support family and friends by adding their individual profiles.

Related articles

• Do You Read Nutrition Labels? (fitsugar.com)
• Nutrition Tools (livepositively.com)
• USDA Launches MiPlato (rcsfoodbank.wordpress.com)
• USDA Highlights on My Plate (rcsfoodbank.wordpress.com)
• Nutrition facts labels often ignored: What’s the fix? (cbsnews.com)

All It Takes Is A Smile (For Some Guys)…

From the 26 December Medical News Today article

Does she or doesn’t she . . .? Sexual cues are ambiguous, and confounding. We – especially men – often read them wrong. A new study hypothesizes that the men who get it wrong might be the ones that evolution has favored. “There are tons of studies showing that men think women are interested when they’re not,” says Williams College psychologist Carin Perilloux, who conducted the research with Judith A. Easton and David M. Buss of University of Texas at Austin. “Ours is the first to systematically examine individual differences.” The findings will appear in an upcoming issue of Psychological Science, a journal published by the Association for Psychological Science. …

 

[Perilloux, C., Easton, J. A. & Buss, D. M. (in press). The misperception of sexual interest.Psychological Science.
Access will be by paid subscription only. For suggestions on how to get this article for free or at low cost, click here]

Exploring Men’s Ability To Manage Fear In Ways That Allow Them To Exhibit Confidence

 

Image via Wikipedia Public Domain

From the 26 December 2011 Medical News Today article

An Indiana University of Pennsylvania sociologist’s study of mixed martial arts competitors found that these men have unique ways of managing fear that actually allow them to exhibit confidence.

This ability, which Dr. Christian A. Vaccaro and colleagues call “managing emotional manhood,” is both an interactional strategy for managing emotion and a means for conveying a social identity to others. The study finds that successful management of fear by men in contact sports such as mixed martial arts may “create an emotional orientation that primes men to subordinate and harm others.” …

…”Putting on a convincing manhood act requires more than using language and the body; it also requires emotion work. By suppressing fear, empathy, pain, and shame and evoking confidence and pride, males signify their alleged possession of masculine selves,” Vaccaro said.

“By signifying masculine selves through evoking fear and shame in others, such men are likely to more easily secure others’ deference and accrue rewards and status. Managing emotional manhood, whether it occurs in a locker room or boardroom, at home or the Oval Office, likely plays a key role in maintaining unequal social arrangements.”

Read the entire Medical News Today article

Related articles

• MMA fighters manage fear in ways that allow them to exhibit confidence (scienceblog.com)
• Study explores men’s ability to manage fear in ways that allow them to exhibit confidence (eurekalert.org)
• Raising Boys to be Real Men (growingupwell.org)

The Ability To Love Takes Root In Earliest Infancy

From the 26 December Medical News Today article

The ability to trust, love, and resolve conflict with loved ones starts in childhood – way earlier than you may think. That is one message of a new review of the literature inCurrent Directions in Psychological Science, a journal published by the Association for Psychological Science. “Your interpersonal experiences with your mother during the first 12 to 18 months of life predict your behavior in romantic relationships 20 years later,” says psychologist Jeffry A. Simpson, the author, with University of Minnesota colleagues W. Andrew Collins and Jessica E. Salvatore. “Before you can remember, before you have language to describe it, and in ways you aren’t aware of, implicit attitudes get encoded into the mind,” about how you’ll be treated or how worthy you are of love and affection.

While those attitudes can change with new relationships, introspection, and therapy, in times of stress old patterns often reassert themselves. The mistreated infant becomes the defensive arguer; the baby whose mom was attentive and supportive works through problems, secure in the goodwill of the other person…

…The good news: “If you can figure out what those old models are and verbalize them,” and if you get involved with a committed, trustworthy partner, says Simpson, “you may be able to revise your models and calibrate your behavior differently.” Old patterns can be overcome. A betrayed baby can become loyal. An unloved infant can learn to love.

 

Read the entire Medical News Today article

 

 

Related articles

• The ability to love takes root in earliest infancy (eurekalert.org)
• The ability to love takes root in earliest infancy (medicalxpress.com)
• Ability to love begins from earliest infancy (news.bioscholar.com)
• The ability to love takes root in earliest infancy (esciencenews.com)
• Are We Born Into Trauma? (psychologytoday.com)

Aging In America: Future Challenges, Promise And Potential

From the 26 December Medical News Today article

Fifty years after its inception, the U.S. Senate Special Committee on Aging will have a more important role than ever as America’s senior population continues to grow, according to the newest issue of the Public Policy and Aging Report (PPAR)…

[Click here for the full text of the report : “America’s Opportunity : The Potential of an Aging Society]

…The PPAR starts with a piece by Hudson, who chronicles the committee’s history. John W. Rowe, MD, chair of the MacArthur Foundation Research Network on an Aging Society, then calls on policymakers to appreciate the positive aspects of life extension and to understand population changes in society-wide, rather than cohort-specific, terms – in order to avoid growing tensions between generations, between the haves and have-nots, and between the more- and the less-educated.

Writing from Germany’s University of Mannheim, Axel Boersch, PhD, Gabriel Heller, and Anette Reil-Held use data from Europe, where population aging is more pronounced than in the U.S., to explore how prevalent intergenerational concerns may be. Former Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin and the Stanford Center on Longevity’s Jane Hickie draw attention to the quality and affordability of community life for tomorrow’s elders. They advocate for containing community-living costs, increasing and integrating housing, health, transportation, and support services, and making special efforst directed toward improving the purchasing capacity of elders with disabilities. A final analysis by the Urban Institute’s Richard Johnson, PhD, focuses on work, retirement, and labor market conditions for older workers. He writes that both employers and public policy can and should be modified to meet the needs and preferences of older workers. …

Read the entire Medical News Today article

Click here for…..

• A video by one of the article’s contributors, Dr. Laura Carstensen  on the potential of an aging society and how elected officials must prepare for the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead.
• A video from the Senate Special Committee on Aging Forum titled “Aging in America: Future Challenges, Promise and Potential on December 14th, 2011

Related articles

• At Senate Aging Committee’s 50th anniversary, experts ponder future legislative concerns (scienceblog.com)
• At Senate Aging Committee’s 50th anniversary, experts ponder future legislative concerns (eurekalert.org)
• Unmet Challenges for an Aging America (money.usnews.com)
• LGBT Older Adults Spotlighted in New Report (egmnblog.wordpress.com)
• Aging authorities differ on tweaks to Social Security’s benefit structure (eurekalert.org)
• New report highlights LGBT older adults’ needs, identifies policy opportunities (eurekalert.org)
• Aging authorities differ on tweaks to Social Security’s benefit structure (physorg.com)

How much guidance do patients want with their medical decisions?

by KEVIN PHO, MD at KevinMD.com

The following column was published on November 10, 2011  inMedical Economics.

I recently saw two patients in my primary care clinic, each with new-onset hypertension.

The first, a middle-aged executive, brought printouts from the Internet and already had researched the various treatment options for high blood pressure. During the visit, we discussed this information, and I gave my thoughts on what to do next. He considered and appreciated my input but made it clear that the ultimate decision was his.

The second was an elderly gentleman in his 70s. Again, I discussed the various management approaches and then gave my opinion on what we should do. In contrast to the other patient, he said, “I want to do whatever you suggest. After all, you’re the doctor.”

As a publisher of a social media health Web site, I’ve observed closely the growth of the patient empowerment movement, facilitated by the Web making health information more accessible. According to the Pew Internet and American Life Project, 80% of Internet users go online to research their health, and this effort gives patients a greater voice in their care. Paternalistic decision making that traditionally drove the doctor-patient relationship slowly is being replaced by shared decisions. But not all patients embrace their new decision-making role.

In a recent study from the Journal of Medical Ethics, researchers interviewed more than 8,000 patients. Almost all wanted doctors to offer choices and help consider their options, but two-thirds preferred that the final medical decision to be left to the physician.

According to Farr A. Curlin, MD, an associate professor of medicine at the University of Chicago and one of the authors of the study, “the data [say] decisively that most patients don’t want to make these decisions on their own.”

There is a spectrum of how much physician involvement patients want. Some may want physicians only to suggest and inform but leave the ultimate decision to them. Others prefer doctors to have the final say.

The only way to know a patient’s preference is through a continuous relationship where that comfort level can be developed over time. After several encounters, a clinician should have a sense of how much, or how little, direction a patient needs.

Sadly, two factors in healthcare today work against such a sustained doctor-patient relationship. One is the fragmentation of medical care. More patients are seeing not only a primary care physician (PCP) in a clinic, but also a hospitalist when admitted to a hospital, along with an array of specialists both in the hospital and the clinic. According to a New England Journal of Medicine study, Medicare beneficiaries saw an average of two primary care physicians and five specialists working in four different practices. Without knowing the patient well, each provider may differ with his or her input in the medical decision process, which can frustrate patients who may have their own ideas of how much their doctors should be involved.

Next, consider the decay of primary care itself. There is a profound shortage of PCPs, with the American College of Physicians noting that “primary care, the backbone of the nation’s healthcare system, is at grave risk of collapse.” Patients who cannot schedule timely primary care appointments go to the emergency department, where they encounter clinicians they’ve never met before. The shortage is compounded by what is shown in the results of an Annals of Internal Medicine survey, which revealed that 30% of PCPs were likely to leave the field, citing burnout from time pressures, a chaotic work pace, and little control over their work. Both the shortage and attrition of primary care providers worsen the odds of forming long-term relationships with patients.

Having known my two patients with hypertension for years, I anticipated how much physician involvement they would need to make a treatment decision and was able to tailor my approach to meet their individual expectations. During this turbulent period of healthcare reform, we cannot lose sight of the importance of a continuous relationship between doctors and patients. Otherwise, our fragmented health system and deterioration of primary care will make it challenging to provide the proper amount of guidance for patient medical decisions.

Kevin Pho is an internal medicine physician and on the Board of Contributors at USA Today.  He is founder and editor of KevinMD.com, also on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and LinkedIn.

Related Resources

• The Social Life of Health Information(Pew Internet Report)OVERVIEW

The internet has changed people’s relationships with information. Our data consistently show that doctors, nurses, and other health professionals continue to be the first choice for most people with health concerns, but online resources, including advice from peers, are a significant source of health information in the U.S.

• Predictors of hospitalised patients’ preferences for physician-directed medical decision-making (Journal of Medical Ethics, June 2011)

Abstract

Background Although medical ethicists and educators emphasise patient-centred decision-making, previous studies suggest that patients often prefer their doctors to make the clinical decisions…

Conclusions Almost all patients want doctors to offer them choices and to consider their opinions, but most prefer to leave medical decisions to the doctor. Patients who are male, less educated, more religious and healthier are more likely to want to leave decisions to their doctors, but effects are small.

• Choosing Wisely (an initiative of the ABIM Foundation)

Choosing Wisely™ aims to get physicians, patients and other health care stakeholders thinking and talking about the overuse or misuse of medical tests and procedures that provide little benefit, and in some instances harm.

Related articles

• What Makes Patients Complex? Ask Their Primary Care Physicians (medicalnewstoday.com)
• What makes patients complex? Ask their primary care physicians (medicalxpress.com)
• Letting Doctors Make the Tough Decisions (jflahiff.wordpress)
• What makes patients complex? Ask their primary care physicians (eurekalert.org)
• Make an informed judgment on the abilities of your surgeon (kevinmd.com)
• Let physician assistants be part of the primary care answer (kevinmd.com)
• Patients eager to see doctor’s notes; physicians, not so much (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• The primary care doc fix is in (kevinmd.com)
• Letting Doctors Make the Tough Decisions (New York Times)

Doctor Rating Web Site Health Grades is a Time Magazine “Best 50” – How Trustworthy Is the Content??

HealthGrades has been rating doctors, dentists, and hospitals on five star scales for over ten years. Ratings include communication skills, time spent, trust, and office environment. There are also links to board sanctions.

This past August Time Magazine rated Health Grades as one of the 50 best Websites of 2011.

Recently there was a lively discussion on this topic at the medical librarian listserv (Medlib-L).
Among the responses…

• Two people noted contact information for their doctors was not correct
• “The self selection process creates a huge bias. The people who are angry and disappointed are the ones motivated to write.”
• “patient rating is 4.5 stars out of 5, but he’s only had 4 patients comment on him. In skimming through other doctors in Fargo, very few have more than 4 patient comments and everyone has between 4 and 5 stars.”
• “My doctor is in private solo practice and when you look at the lists by highlighted or popularity they are very institutionally presented. The independents come at the end of the list so this is not a fair representation”
• “the physician she replaced upon his retirement in April 2008 is still listed (with one review), although he has been gone for almost 4 years”

Although these comments do not compromise an in depth critique of Health Grades they do raise questions about its currency, contact information correctness, and basis of comparison (basically unsolicited input from patients). It would be wise to use Health Grades in conjunction with other sources of information to make good decisions on choosing or evaluating a doctor, dentist, or hospital.

Some additional sources of information

• Leapfrog Group Hospital Quality and Safety Survey  compares” hospitals’ performance on the national standards of safety, quality, and efficiency that are most relevant to consumers and purchasers of care”
• The CAHPS Hospital Survey  -Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, programs and information.
• Hospital Compare – A quality tool provided by Medicare
• Comparing Health Care Quality: A National Directory (Robert J. Woods Foundation) -Web-based resources to help them choose a doctor or hospital in their town based on whether patients received recommended tests and treatment, the outcomes of their care, their experience with providers, or the overall cost of care. Not comprehensive, geared mostly to large urban areas.
• Choosing a Doctor or Health Care Service (Medline Plus) includes numerous resources on  how to find a specific doctor and general guidelines
• State Medical Boards usually provide only the basics: contact information, specialties if any, and any formal actions

Related articles

• Patients’ Grades to Affect Hospitals’ Medicare Reimbursements (nytimes.com)
• Medicare launches ‘hospital compare’ (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• Isn’t it time for a patient rating system for doctors? (kevinmd.com)
• HealthGrades to Merge with CPM Marketing – Will Their Data and Questionable Algorithms Will Be Improved For Consumers? (ducknetweb.blogspot.com)
• Social Media Physician Referrals – Whichdoc Recommends Doctors Using Facebook (TrendHunter.com) (trendhunter.com)
• Limits to the Active Health Care Consumer (josephineensign.wordpress.com)