State of CDC Archive

2009

Helping States Prepare - Utah readiness

CDC provides technical assistance to recipients of funds from the Public Health Emergency Preparedness Cooperative Agreement. Our staff helps local jurisdictions under the Cities Readiness Initiative. This initiative is a federally funded effort to prepare major U.S. cities to respond to a large-scale bioterrorist event by dispensing antibiotics to an identified population within 48 hours.

With the participation of many local and state agencies, Operation Cache Out was conducted at banks in Utah. This hands on preparedness training exercise comprised the Summit County Health Department, Tooele County Health Department, Utah Department of Health, Zions Bank, Heritage West Credit Union, and Avatar Solutions LLC. The planning team performed a mock drill to simulate dispensing antiviral drugs, which would require staff to be activated at all levels of Summit and Tooele counties.

Preventing Heart Disease and Stroke through the Nebraska WISEWOMAN Program

Many low-income women, particularly those without insurance, cannot afford preventive screenings for cardiovascular risk factors and therefore have higher rates of heart disease and stroke. Begun in 2000, the community intervention program, known as WISEWOMAN, now has 21 counterparts across the country providing risk-factor screenings, healthy-lifestyle counseling, and behavioral interventions for under- or uninsured women with low incomes.

Researching Hispanics in New Mexico with Diabetes Education

In the past 15 years, the number of Americans with diagnosed diabetes has more than doubled, reaching 14.6 million in 2005. Diabetes has become especially prevalent among Hispanics. In Hidalgo and Grant counties in New Mexico, residents are poor or elderly and have major health problems, with 1 in 5 residents having no health insurance, and 1 in 11 having diabetes. CDC’s Racial and Ethnic Approaches to Community Health (REACH) program funds services to raise awareness about diabetes and lessen its negative effect on the area’s Hispanic residents. CDC funding allows for the implementation of the Lifestyles and Values Impact Diabetes Awareness (La Vida) program, which off ers diabetes education classes, support groups, community outreach, and grocery store tours that include instructions on how to read food labels. The program includes a physical activity fitness program and trains community lay health workers, called promotoras, to provide personalized support for program participants.

Addressing Motor-Vehicle Injuries among American Indians and Alaska Natives in Wisconsin

American Indians and Alaska Natives are at increased risk of motor-vehicle related injury and death, with rates 1.5 to 3 times higher than rates for other Americans. Through CDC funding, four northwestern tribes from 2004 to 2009 were able to develop, put into action, and evaluate evidence-based interventions to reduce motor vehicle-related injury and death in their communities. This effort led to these groups using seatbelts and child safety seats more as well as driving under the influence of alcohol less often. Specifically, the Ho-Chunk Nation in Wisconsin partnered with local police officers to implement a comprehensive media campaign, conducting targeted education and training for police officers by hosting community-wide educational events, and conducting child safety seat clinics and checks. The Ho-Chunk Nation has been able to increase seat belt use by 38% and 94% for passengers, while child safety seat use increased 65%.

Partnering to Tackle Diabetes in South Carolina

African Americans are at greater risk than whites of developing diabetes, and they are at greater risk of developing diabetes-related complications such as heart disease, stroke, blindness, and renal failure. Diabetes is the sixth leading cause of death in South Carolina, claiming more than 1,600 lives each year. The Medical University of South Carolina along with the Charleston and Georgetown Diabetes Coalition assessed community needs to help people manage their diabetes themselves. The coalition discovered that people with diabetes had a high interest in using the Internet to find important information about managing their diabetes. However, 50% of older community members and 40% of people with less than 12 years of formal education needed help using the Internet. The coalition built a library partnership to support and sustain diabetes education across the community. The library partnership promotes use of online health information through support systems specifically for the African-American community.

2008

Access to public water is so limited on the Navajo Nation that nearly one in three households relies on untreated water sources. To rectify this problem, CDC is helping federal agencies and the Navajo Nation identify and publicize unsafe water sources and report findings to the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, a US government oversight committee composed of congressional members.

Providing access to safe drinking water on Navajo land is particularly costly and problematic because water sources are limited, deep, and highly mineralized. Approximately 30% of Navajo households are not connected to a public water system. In addition, many connected households are reluctant to use public water utilities because of cost or the taste of treated water and choose to haul water instead.

Since 2006, CDC has been working with the Navajo Nation to determine the quality of unregulated water used by Navajo households. In 2008, CDC and the Navajo Environmental Protection Agency (Navajo EPA) completed a survey of 199 unregulated, untreated livestock wells and springs used for drinking water. They found widespread bacterial contamination. Arsenic was identified as the most frequent chemical contaminant of concern (12% of sources exceeded the safe drinking water standard for arsenic) followed by uranium (5% exceeded the safe drinking water standard for uranium).

After identifying specific high-risk communities where the water contained a high concentration of arsenic and uranium, CDC partnered with the Navajo Division of Health, Navajo EPA, and the US EPA to create a health awareness campaign that educates and warns those communities about the health risks of water sources that are particularly unsafe. Additionally, CDC shared findings on uranium water contamination with members of the US House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform and is assisting government officials in their five-year action plan to address the impact of uranium contamination with Navajo communities.

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Multistate Autism Study

CDC’s Study to Explore Early Development, the largest epidemiology study of its kind, has been launched in the field. This multisite autism research study is an important complement to the other work occurring at federal and academic organizations. Approximately 2,700 children ages two to five years old and their parents are participating in the study in California, Colorado, Georgia, Maryland, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania.

The program is collecting data to study a number of factors to increase our understanding of autism. The factors include comparing physical and behavioral characteristics of children with autism, children with other developmental disabilities, and children without a noted developmental delay or disability. Researchers will also look at health conditions among children with and without autism. Finally, they will study factors associated with a child’s risk for developing autism such as genes, health conditions, and other factors that affected the mother’s pregnancy; health and developmental factors during the child’s first few years of life; and the relationship between combined genetic and non-genetic factors. The information is being obtained through interviews, medical exams, medical records; and the collection of cheek swabs, blood samples, and hair samples.

2007

States Gain Ground in School Health

Childhood obesity rates have risen sharply over the last three decades, but data from CDC′s School Health Policies and Programs Study show that more schools are heeding CDC′s recommendations for improving our children′s health and are starting to make a difference in the nation′s schools. Through CDC′s goals process, the agency has placed a significant amount of resources into improving the health and safety of students by implementing comprehensive and coordinated instruction, programs, policies, and services that involve families, schools, and the community.

Less junk food, more exercise, and better tobacco policies are some of the major improvements CDC identified in the largest and most comprehensive study of health policies and programs in the nation′s schools. State accomplishments include:

Arkansas has kept childhood obesity rates stable for the past two years by implementing a comprehensive initiative that includes improvements in school nutrition and increased physical activity. A key to its success is the creation of the Arkansas Center for Health Improvement (ACHI), a nonpartisan independent health policy center. Now in its fourth year, ACHI has collected data on the annual body/mass index (BMI) assessments for half a million students in 1,100 schools. ACHI also provides progress reports to all key stakeholders on the annual BMI assessment, and CDC has been pivotal in advising ACHI in interpreting the data and ensuring accurate results. Its next steps are to analyze the data to determine which population groups have more of an obesity burden and to provide resources to help those groups reduce their risks.

Colorado′s Physical Activity and Nutrition Program is in eight rural communities to develop multisector obesity prevention work plans based on community assessments and formative research. The program has received support from CDC and numerous partners and is successfully continuing partnerships to support comprehensive community approaches. In Commerce City, for example, approaches include:

• Eat Smart, Be Smart: A nutrition, cooking, and literacy program for low-income preschool students and their parents.
• Helping Hands Youth: A community gardening program for youth.
• Mobile Market: A small-business pilot program to deliver fresh, affordable fruits and vegetables to various locations in the community.

The Texas state legislature mandated in 2001 that all elementary schools have a coordinated school health program for both nutrition and physical activity by 2007. The Coordinated Approach to Child Health (CATCH) program is an elementary school program that provides guidance on school curriculum, physical education, school lunch, and family involvement. It is proven to be effective in producing diet and physical activity change persisting into early adolescence and to prevent increases in overweight from grades 3 to 5. This program also sparked Texas state legislation requiring a coordinated school health program.

CATCH has been adopted by more than 1,500 schools in Texas, approximately one third of the state′s elementary schools. Funding from CDC′s Prevention Research Centers Program boosted CATCH′s research base, allowing local officials to refine and test different strategies.

E.coli and Food Safety

The nationwide spinach scare of 2006 still resonates across the country as government regulators and vegetables growers hash out proposed guidelines that will alter the way fresh greens are handled in this country. This multistage Escherichia coli (E. coli) outbreak linked to fresh spinach grown in California′s Salinas Valley was the largest ever for leafy green products. By the time it was over, 200 persons in 26 states were infected with the outbreak strain of E. coli O157:H7, and three confirmed deaths were associated with the outbreak. Multiple federal agencies, including CDC, identified the food production area as the source of the E. coli contamination. The produce industry responded quickly to the recall in an effort to rebuild consumer confidence and minimize the risk of future outbreaks. The U.S. Department of Agriculture led the push to add new safeguards for how leafy greens are handled and processed.

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Health Protection Goals Transform CDC

Over the last year, CDC centers, institute, and offices worked collaboratively and with CDC′s partners to develop the full vision of CDC′s four Health Protection Goals to promote and protect health in every stage of life, in every place, for emerging health threats, and around the world.

CDC′s goals guide our work and have resulted in many new proposals that incorporate collaborative and holistic approaches to addressing health protection.

An example of the projects coming specifically from the goal objectives and coordinated across CDC centers is a one-year Healthy Parenting Fellowship supported by the Healthy Children Goal. This fellowship will bring a visiting scientist to CDC to help increase the agency′s knowledge base on the role healthy parenting plays in improving health from birth through adolescence and will focus on the middle childhood population (ages 4–11 years). This enhanced knowledge will, in turn, enable CDC to develop more efective parent-targeted programs and initiatives.

The development of other goals and objectives are resulting in similar cross-cutting recommendations to unite CDC internally and externally with its partners to improve health impact. A Green Healthcare proposal backed by the Healthy Healthcare Goal proposes the investigation of how a hospital′s design, function, and indoor environment affect patient recovery and outcomes and healthcare worker safety, health, and productivity. The project involves wide collaboration that brings together multiple centers and offices at CDC as well as other government partners, including the Environmental Protection Agency and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, as well as private partner, Kaiser Permanente.

Developing the home-focused messages draws from the current work in CDC programs, such as lead poisoning; injury; indoor air, including secondhand smoke; food safety; nutrition and physical activity; emergency preparedness; pest control; and infectious disease. This project also coordinates with other federal agencies and professional and nongovernmental organizations.

CDC′s four overarching health protection goals and the goal plans continue to transform the way CDC does the business of health protection by ensuring that our work is even more targeted and result/outcome oriented; our approach, action, and method are strategic and evidence based; that our course of action is specific and advances underlying strategies; and that we can measure our progress and promote accountability for the work we do.