CDC and FDA are seeking your support to help get the word out about these new, historic FDA tobacco regulations. You can support this effort by:

• Posting a “Put Out the Myth” graphical button on your Web site. When clicked, this button will take visitors to a consumer-focused feature article on CDC’s Web site (www.cdc.gov/features/tobaccocontrols) entitled “New Tobacco Controls Have Public Health Impact.” This article provides information on the regulations and their public health impact. The article also contains helpful links to resources—such as FDA guidance documents—that provide detailed information on the new regulations. Visit the “Put Out the Myth” download page at http://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/stateandcommunity/fda_regs/buttons/index.htm to obtain html code for a variety of button sizes.
• Following CDCTobaccoFree on Twitter www.twitter.com/CDCTobaccoFree and retweeting key messages related to the new FDA tobacco regulations.
• Becoming a fan of CDC’s Facebook page at www.facebook.com/cdc and posting “Put Out the Myth” status updates on your Facebook profiles.
• Telling others about our posting on CDC’s Everyday Health Widget at http://www.cdc.gov/Widgets/#everydayhealth.
• Viewing OSH’s latest entry on CDC’s MySpace page at http://www.myspace.com/CDC_eHealth.
• Following OSH on GovLoop at www.govloop.com/group/CDCTobaccoFree. A post on GovLoop announces the significance of June 22 and encourages readers to visit the online feature article. GovLoop is a social networking site for the government community. It currently serves about 30,000 members, including local, state, and federal government employees and contractors. Academics and students interested in government are also welcome to join.
• Subscribing to CDC’s Smoking and Tobacco Use Main Feed at www.cdc.gov/tobacco/rss/index.htm to receive updates of new and recently changed content from CDC’s Smoking & Tobacco Use Web site on your browser or desktop.
• Encouraging readers to send Health-e-Cards emphasizing the value of being tobacco freewww2c.cdc.gov/ecards/index.asp?category=201.

Please also continue to access CDC’s Smoking & Tobacco Use Web site www.cdc.gov/tobacco for helpful resources and the latest information.

Read and view more at http://www.newsweek.com/id/40211#?l=1833873955&t=71186711001

To read more about this NIOSH investigation, please see summary NIOSH Science Blog on this topic at:

http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/blog/nsb061609_casino.html

To find out more and to start your  My Family Health Portrait, visit https://familyhistory.hhs.gov

My Family Health Portrait allows users to assemble their family health information without retaining their personal information. Consumers using HealthVault decide what information is stored and shared. Privacy and security are top priorities for HHS and its arrangements with third-party health solutions, such as Microsoft HealthVault. Stringent security measures are required to ensure that the user’s information is protected.

For more information about The Surgeon General’s Family Health History Initiative visit http://www.hhs.gov/familyhistory/.

Tuesday, December 30, 2008

The Washoe County District Heath Department recently published the results of an extensive assessment of childhood overweight and obesity in our community. This important study was conducted in collaboration with the Washoe County School District Student Health Services.

Utilizing the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) formula for calculating an individual’s Body Mass Index (BMI is essentially a measure that is a function of one’s weight and height, and provides a screening tool to identify potential weight problems), the study’s researchers calculated the BMI for each student in a randomly selected sample of elementary, middle‐school, and high‐school students in Washoe County.

The primary purpose of the study was to estimate the percent of youth in our community who are underweight, healthy weight, overweight, and obese. Local health and school officials were also interested in establishing baseline data on youth obesity and overweight in our community in order to compare local trends with national and regional rates.

The majority of Washoe County children are considered to be at a healthy weight (60.1 percent). However, study results indicated that 19 percent are overweight and another 18.5 percent are obese, and Washoe County youths are overweight or obese in greater rates than the nation.

While the results of this study confirmed what many health officials suspected, documentation of the fact that nearly two of five children in our community are overweight or obese is important for several reasons. Foremost, obese children and teenagers are developing diseases, such as type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular, formerly only seen in adults.

Additionally, obese and overweight children are more likely to become overweight and obese adults and thus face a lifetime of poorer health – indeed, recent research suggests that the current generation of children could be the first generation to have shorter, less healthy lives than their parents.

In its recent report, “F as in Fat: How Obesity Policies are Failing America,” the Trust for America’s Health contends that we have been slow to take action to deal with obesity because it has typically been seen as an issue of personal responsibility. In other words, there is the predominant view that individuals making decisions about what to eat and how active to be should bear the burden and blame for their unhealthy choices.

A public health perspective on obesity acknowledges that individual behavior and personal responsibility are important parts of the equation. However, there many factors beyond any individual’s control that have contributed to rising obesity rates in Nevada and the rest of the US. These include the high cost of healthy foods, the location of grocery stores, access to safe places to exercise, and access to and the availability of preventive health care services.

To take one local example, there are a little over 70,000 children in Washoe County between the ages of 5 and 18, yet only five skateboarding parks in the Reno‐Sparks (the area’s only indoor skate park closed earlier this year). These parks are inaccessible to the vast majority of kids in that they require a willing parent or sibling with a car to drop off and pick them up at the park.

Skateboarding represents a relatively inexpensive form of physical activity – all five outdoor parks are free and equipment costs and maintenance are reasonable – that can be had as long as the weather is good and the pavement is dry.

To be sure, skateboarding comes with its own set of health risks – I’ve made more than one trip to the ER and have come to know three orthopedic physicians since my oldest son began skateboarding ten years ago.

Nonetheless, my admittedly unscientific observation has been that there are few, if any, overweight skateboarders.

The creation and strategic placement of a few more skate parks in residential areas of Washoe County thus represents a fairly straightforward and inexpensive opportunity to increase physical activity among local youth.

Addressing the obesity epidemic in our community must be a shared responsibility that will require us to collectively move beyond bland admonishments to young couch potatoes to “eat better” and “get more exercise.”

As the Trust for America’s Health succinctly puts it “we need to find ways to make healthy choices easy choices.”

A copy of the Washoe County District Health Department’s report on childhood overweight and obesity can be found at www.washoecounty.us/health/cdpp/epinews.html. The Trust for America’s Health issue report on obesity can be found at http://healthyamericans.org/reports/obesity2008/.

John Packham, PhD is Director of Health Policy Research at the University of Nevada School of Medicine. He currently serves as the President of the Nevada Public Health Association.

You may wish to communicate your own views to your elected representatives.

Click here for the Summary of Presidents Proposal

In April 2008, $9,500,000 was appropriated from the Trust Fund for Public Health to assist in reducing the shortfall of the Nevada State Budget. On June 27, 2008, during a Special Session of the Nevada State Legislature, the remainder of the principal in the Trust Fund, $27,300,000, was reverted to the State General Fund. Additionally, the Trust Fund’s 2009 Master Settlement Agreement tobacco receipts, estimated to be $4,400,000, will be redirect to the State General Fund.

Unfortunately, since the Trust Fund for Public Health can only grant the interest and income monies earned on the principal of the Trust Fund, there will not be any money available for a number of years.

The Trust Fund for Public Health grew out of the national tobacco settlement, reached on November 23, 1998, by virtually all states and the major tobacco companies in the United States, ending litigation on the issue of the liability of the tobacco companies for damages caused to states by cigarette smoking. Prior to the settlement agreement, each state had filed a complaint in its own state court seeking damages and injunction relief. Under the settlement, tobacco companies did not admit liability, but they did agree to make certain payments to states and change corporate conduct in exchange for the states dismissing lawsuits.

During the 1999 session, the Nevada Legislature approved two bills, Assembly Bill 474 and Senate Bill 496, which determined how the money received by the State of Nevada from the tobacco settlement would be distributed. Following the disbursement of funds for several one-time expenditures, tobacco settlement money received by Nevada will be distributed as follows: Fifty percent to the Fund for a Healthy Nevada; forty percent to the Millennium Scholarship Program; and ten percent to the Trust Fund for Public Health.

According to Assembly Bill (AB) 474, ten percent (10%) of all tobacco settlement proceeds will be allocated to the Trust Fund for Public Health. The State Treasurer’s Office is responsible for investing the funds, as it does other state funds. The interest and income earned on the money in the Trust Fund is then appropriated to the Board of Trustees for the Trust Fund for Public Health to support projects in the following areas:

• Promotion of public health and programs for disease or illness prevention,
• Research on issues related to public health, and
• Provisions of direct heath care services to children and senior citizens.

An eleven-member Board of Trustees was created by the legislation to provide strategic direction for how the funds will be expended, including development of guidelines for making annual grant awards. Currently, projects are funded for one year.

For more information on the Board of Trustees or to be added to the mailing list, please contact the Health Division at: (775) 684-4200.

Sands brings more than 20 years of experience in public health, preventive medicine and health planning and administration to the NPHF. Prior to becoming chief health officer, he previously served the Southern Nevada Health District as its founding director of the newly created Division of Community Health, and as assistant health officer.

Board certified by the American Board of Preventive Medicine as a specialist in general preventive medicine and public health, Sands received his osteopathic medical degree from the Chicago College of Osteopathic Medicine, and his master’s of public health from the University of Michigan School of Public Health.

Marena Works holds vast experience in health and human services previously serving as the Community Health Program manager/clinical nurse specialist prior to her role as director of Carson City Health and Human Services Department. Works received her master’s of science in nursing (MSN) and master’s of public health (MPH), in addition to her bachelor’s degree in nursing (BDN) from the University of Nevada, Reno.

Elected NPHF board members include: Dr. Mary Anderson, district health officer for the Washoe County District Health Department; Dr. Bob Brunner, associate professor at University of Nevada, Reno; Larry Curley, executive director of the Indian Health Board; Craig Ganger, tax manager at Freeman & Williams; Louise Helton, executive director of the Communities in Schools program; Dr. Trudy Larson, professor at the University of Nevada, Reno; Larry Matheis, executive director of the Nevada State Medical Association; Dr. John Packham, director of Health Policy Research at the University of Nevada, Reno’s Center for Education and Health Services; Casey Strachan, vice president of creative services for KPS|3 Marketing;  Dr. Larry Weiss, director of the University of Nevada, Reno’s Sanford Center for Aging; and Rota Rosaschi, executive director of NPHF.

State is last in high school graduation and child immunization.