With a new year right around the corner, we invite you to dedicate yourself, your family, and your community to a year of health in 2014!

  

Multicultural Health Planners

 

The National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases (NIAMS) has created a series of free multicultural health planners for 2014, titled A Year of Health: A Guide to a Healthy 2014 for You and Your Family. These planners provide research-based health tips and information about staying healthy and managing conditions of the bones, joints, muscles, and skin.

 

The four health planners, created with community input, are tailored for the following audiences:

• African Americans
• American Indians/Alaska Natives/Native Hawaiians
• Asian Americans/Pacific Islanders
• Hispanics/Latinos (bilingual planner).

Outreach Tools to Support Your Organization

The NIAMS created an electronic toolkit (e-toolkit) of resources to help you and your organization distribute the health planners in your communities. The e-toolkit includes:

• Resources for conducting outreach, including tips for promoting the health planners
• Templates for social media posts (Twitter and Facebook) and newsletter content
• Templates for the four multicultural health planners that can be customized with your organization's logo and contact information
• An image gallery of multicultural photos to tailor materials for your organization's community.

Order Your Free Planners Today!

To order up to eight health planners (maximum two copies of each planner type) free of charge from the National Institutes of Health, please visit the NIAMS Publication Ordering System. For bulk orders, please contact the NIAMS Information Clearinghouse toll free at 877-226-4267 (TTY: 301-565-2966) or email NIAMSinfo@mail.nih.gov. When contacting the Clearinghouse, please indicate planner type and quantity for faster processing and delivery. Please allow for up to three weeks to receive your planner(s) once an order has been placed.

 

The NIAMS, part of the NIH, launched the National Multicultural Outreach Initiative in 2013 to raise awareness about the availability of, and access to, NIH, NIAMS, and other Federal resources to help people with conditions of the bones, joints, muscles, and skin. Many of these conditions disproportionately affect people in minority populations, and access to helpful health information is often limited in these communities. The initiative aims to help address some of these disparities, as well as to support and involve organizations in multicultural outreach.

 

We appreciate your interest in our 2014 health planners. You are an important part of our distribution and outreach efforts! We encourage you to share this announcement with colleagues who work with multicultural communities.

The National Clearinghouse on Family and Youth recently launched a new interactive version of their "Guide to Starting  A Youth Program".  The new interactive version takes you through the steps of launching your own youth-serving nonprofit, developed for people (both adults and teens) who want to work with youth and help improve their well-being-and their futures.

Accessible at: http://ncfy.acf.hhs.gov/news/2013/11/want-start-youth-program-get-going-today-our-all-new-guide

The guide consists of four interactive stages:

Stage 1: Define Your Niche

Stage 2: Conceive Your Mission and Vision

Stage 3: Bring Your Nonprofit Into Being

Stage 4: Plan Your Programs

You'll also find downloadable tools to help you do things like create your founding board, plan your startup budget and identify other organizations and groups you might partner with.

 

OWH has recently updated the BodyWorks toolkit materials in English, and is currently updating the corresponding Spanish materials. However, due to budget constraints, we cannot offer hard copies of the new toolkits.

 

We still have more than 3,000 of the old, hard copy toolkits in Spanish(hard copy toolkits in English are out-of-print). These Spanish-language materials are slightly outdated-for example, they do not reflect the most recent dietary or physical activity guidelines-but they still contain many useful resources in Spanish: cookbooks, journals, family weekly planners, and more. To view a list of Spanish-language toolkit contents,click here.

 

Can you help us distribute these Spanish-language BodyWorks toolkits to communities so that we don't have to send them for recycling? Community leaders are welcome to break down the toolkits to use the pieces individually.

 

If you would like more information or are interested in obtaining copies of these Spanish toolkits, please contact us at bodyworks@hhs.gov.

Andrew M. Kaunitz, MD Reviewing American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists., Obstet Gynecol 2013 Dec 122:1368

  

ACOG updates guidance for diagnosing von Willebrand disease, treating heavy menstrual bleeding, and hematologic collaboration in the care of women with this hereditary condition.

  

Sponsoring Organization: American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG)

Target Population: Obstetric, gynecologic, and hematologic care providers

  

Von Willebrand disease (vWD), an autosomally inherited bleeding disorder in which von Willebrand Factor (a protein important for normal platelet adhesion and proper coagulant factor activity) is deficient, is the most common inherited bleeding disorder among U.S. women. Prevalence of vWD is 1% overall, but can be as high as 24% among women with chronic heavy menstrual bleeding (HMB). In addition to HMB (which is experienced by 74% to 92% of women with vWD), epistaxis, gingival bleeding, and bleeding after dental procedures, from minor cuts and abrasions, and postoperatively are common. These updated guidelines reflect recent clinical advances. - See more at: http://www.jwatch.org/na32996/2013/12/12/von-willebrand-disease-what-womens-health-clinicians-need?query=etoc_jwwomen#sthash.J9m0oRZC.dpuf