Diverse: N.C. A&T Psychology Professor Receives Grant to Study Effects of Social Media on Black Women’s Health. “Dr. Kalynda C. Smith, a North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University (NC A&T) psychology professor, has received a $545,686 grant to study how social media affects Black women’s health.”
Teen Vogue: Our Bodies Ourselves Today Launches Sex and Health Website For a New Generation. “Our Bodies Ourselves Today launched its new website on September 9, bringing a new look and more evidence-based information to women, girls, and gender-expansive people. The new organization, which worked with the blessing of the original 1970s group, aimed to make an inclusive and comprehensive place where people of all experiences can go to see themselves reflected, and to learn about their bodies and their health in a time when not everyone has that access.”
Newswise: 41% of teenagers can’t tell the difference between true and fake online health messages . “A new study has found that teenagers have a hard time discerning between fake and true health messages. Only 48% of the participants trusted accurate health messages (without editorial elements) more than fake ones. Meanwhile, 41% considered fake and true neutral messages equally trustworthy and 11% considered true neutral health messages less trustworthy than fake health messages.”
CNET: Social Media and Chronic Illness: An Impact That Transcends a Screen. “Before the digital era, it was nearly impossible to connect with others who had similar illnesses, let alone see the scale of chronic illness visibility. But social media is changing that. Many people with chronic illnesses have turned to social platforms to share their stories in the hope that it’ll prove helpful to anyone experiencing a similar situation.”
Abduzeedo: Introducing Hearing Birdsong, beautifully transforming hearing health. “We were all ears when we heard about Hearing Birdsong, a beautiful and immersive new design initiative digitalizing the approach to hearing screening with an end goal of de-stigmatizing hearing loss.”
Los Angeles Times: The wellness community’s fight over COVID vaccine misinformation – Los Angeles Times. “The vaccination selfie, showing a gloved hand holding a needle and a smiling face hidden behind a mask, looked like thousands of others posted to Instagram as the COVID-19 vaccine rolled out across the U.S. But the comments it drew did not. Sell out puppet, sneered one user in response to Dr. Michael Greger’s photo. Burning your book tonight in my fire pit, said a second. Another simply wrote: 👎💔💩.”
World Health Organization: WHO Global Health Facilities Database: Ensuring access to primary healthcare and UHC. “The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed urgent gaps in countries’ current ability to locate health facilities, impeding progress to provide equitable access to therapeutics, diagnostics, and vaccinations through the ACT-Accelerator and other initiatives. As a standardized and open access repository of health facility information, the database will provide critical insights to deliver primary health care, especially during emergencies. It will also leverage the power of geospatial data to map health facilities in relation to communities and help bridge long-standing inequalities in access and use.”
HuffPost: I Gained 70 Pounds During COVID. Here’s What Happened On My First Day Back In The Office.. “When we are finally able to climb out of survival mode after this traumatic, globe-changing event, I’m hoping most people will be far more concerned about how to acclimate back into their long-abandoned routines, how to fortify their depleted mental health, how to honor those we have lost by relearning the little things we didn’t know were what added up to make us human. I hope it’s soul stuff we’ll be focused on, not bodies. I do want to get back to a more active lifestyle, because, well, movement feels good. But whether I eventually lose the weight I gained or not (and if I do, I will miss you, massive boobs!), I have to do my best to accept my body where it is every step of the way.”
Radio Iowa: U-I wins grant for health stories project. “A project-based at the University of Iowa has won a national grant to launch a digital library for demonstrating the importance of stories about health. The narratives will teach people how to gather personal stories about health — in English and Spanish. Codirector Daena Goldsmith says the project has the ability to improve patients’ lives and improve health care provider morale, especially during a pandemic.”
Search Engine Land: Meta will remove targeting options for sensitive topics on January 19. “Meta will remove certain targeting options relating to sensitive topics on January 19, 2022. ‘Health causes,’ ‘sexual orientation,’ ‘religious practices and groups,’ and ‘political beliefs, social issues, causes, organizations and figures,’ were among the examples of targeting options slated for deprecation.”
Cornell Chronicle: Roper Center launches Health Poll Database. “Supported by funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the new database offers the public unprecedented access to questions and results from more than 85 years of U.S. national polls on health-related topics. This new resource promotes an understanding of public opinion on a broad range of health issues.”
Mashable: 4 things to know before googling health issues. “As we come up on its two-year anniversary, the pandemic could still do some good — if we take the time and energy to learn from it. To start, three medical experts share what they would advise their own patients to do while searching for health information online.”
Bloomberg: Google’s Medical Chief Says Company Shifting Health Focus. “In August, the leader of Google Health departed and the division dissolved. While some interpreted the moves as evidence that Google was retreating from health care, the company’s chief health officer said the changes reflected a shifting focus, not an abandonment of a sector the search giant has trumpeted as a promising future business.”
9News: Colorado fitness coach regrets not getting COVID-19 vaccine after 2-month hospital stay. “He was once a fitness coach and the epitome of strength – now after two months in the hospital, Bill Phillips is a changed man. The 56-year-old didn’t think he needed the COVID-19 vaccine and that decision almost killed him. Phillips said he caught the virus the first time in January 2020. A test found he had antibodies so he decided to not get vaccinated. He caught COVID-19 again in June 2021. ”
Techdirt: Naturopath Sues Twitter After It Bans Her Account For Spreading Medical Misinformation . “This lawsuit [PDF], however, has an actual lawyer behind it. And by actual lawyer, I mean a lawyer whose representation may be less useful than no representation at all. The lawyer helping the plaintiff bring this constitutional violation lawsuit against Twitter is David Yerushalmi, perhaps best know for being a bit bigoted himself.”
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