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Get Healthy!

23 Results for search "Safety &, Public Health".

Wellness Library Results

For most people, one doctor isn't enough. If you ever move to a different city, get sick during a vacation, or develop a condition that requires specialized help, you'll eventually find yourself in an unfamiliar waiting room. Think of each new doctor as a new ally, another person who is committed to your health. Now the bad news: The larger your healthcare team, the greater the opportunity for mis...

Being prepared ahead of time for a poisoning emergency can save valuable minutes when a person's health -- or life -- is at stake. Look up the phone number of your local poison control center and place it alongside other important numbers everywhere you keep such a list: home, work, wallet, and/or cell phone. The people at 911 can send over an ambulance, but the poison control people are usually t...

Spend an hour at a playground, and there's a good chance that you'll see a child in tears. As long as kids climb, play tag, and reenact superhero battles, a few bruises and scrapes will be part of the scene. But not all mishaps on the swings, slides, and monkey bars can be fixed with a Band-Aid. According to the National Safety Council, playground injuries send more than 200,000 American children ...

Why do doctors order laboratory tests? A doctor could have all sorts of reasons for ordering a lab test. They can be used to check for routine things such as cholesterol in the blood or protein levels in the urine. If you're not feeling well and the cause is unclear, a lab test of blood or urine may help pinpoint the cause. And if you're already being treated for an illness, a lab test can help t...

In Truckee, California, 25-year-old Timothy Brooks flew into a rage after another car cut him off on the highway. He followed the offending car to a bagel shop where the driver, 47-year-old Robert Ash, had stopped to eat. After yelling at the older man, Brooks attacked him, stabbing him to death with a knife. Brooks was convicted of second-degree murder. In Little Falls, New Jersey, May Lee and h...

Of the 1.1 billion medical visits Americans make each year, almost half are to primary care doctors. They are on the frontlines of medicine, doing everything from diagnosing strep throat and setting broken bones, to treating chronic diseases like diabetes, asthma, and high blood pressure. They also help patients make certain lifestyle changes, like following a healthy diet, getting more exercise, ...

Why do I -- or members of my family -- need to see an eye doctor? Sooner or later almost everyone will need to use eyeglasses. Vision problems are generally divided into two categories: nearsightedness (being able to see clearly only when things are close up or nearby), or farsightedness (being able to see things far away, while small nearby objects, such as printed words, appear blurred). People...

What kind of pacifier should I buy? Find one with a shape your child likes. You may have to experiment a bit before you find something that works. Choose a sturdy one-piece type with a soft nipple and ventilation holes (without them, saliva can collect behind the base, irritating the skin around the mouth and causing a rash). The shield surrounding the nipple should be at least one and a half in...

Why should my child wear a bike helmet? Every year about 350,000 children under the age of 15 are rushed to hospital emergency rooms with injuries from bicycle wrecks -- many of them head injuries that can cause brain damage and life-long disabilities. But these injuries are largely preventable if your child wears a bike helmet, which can reduce the risk by 85 percent, according to the U.S. Cons...

With all the news about contaminated food, is there anything I can do to lower my child's risk? There's good reason to wonder. Salmonella, E. coli, Listeria, and other potentially dangerous germs can be transmitted in food, causing illness and sometimes death. Fortunately, a few simple tips on buying, storing, and preparing food can go a long way toward lessening your family's chances of getting ...

You don't need to stay inside just because the temperature is plunging. As anyone who has ever strapped on ice skates or hopped on a sled can attest, cold-weather fun is some of the best fun of all. Of course, cold weather also calls for caution. How much do you know about staying safe when it's cold outside? Take this short quiz to find out. 1. Which of these is a common symptom of hypothermia?...

Whether you're looking for the aspirin in your medicine cabinet or recuperating in a hospital bed, safety should be uppermost in your mind. How much do you know about protecting yourself? Take this short quiz to find out. 1. According to a report from the Institute of Medicine, mistakes in hospitals kill about half as many Americans each year as car accidents. True or false? True False 2....

When the troubled patient from Puerto Rico arrived at Dr. Hector Flores's office, she had already been seen by three other doctors for depression. None of their treatments seemed to have had any effect. Despondent and anxious after her failed marriage, the woman was unable to work. Although she was well educated and understood why Flores prescribed antidepressants and therapy, the patient nonethe...

If you've attended a large family reunion lately, it may come as no surprise that women tend to outlive men. In the United States, the life expectancy of men is about five years less than women, according to the American Journal of Public Health. For African American men, it's still worse: They tend to live about six years less than white men. Nearly all of the biggest killers in America -- inclu...

For all of the good they do in the world, medications can also be extremely risky. Even if you take your medication exactly as you're supposed to, you could still suffer side effects. Taking the wrong pill at the wrong time in the wrong way will only increase the danger. If your doctor recommends a prescription drug, you need to become an expert in your own treatment. Your doctor needs to be info...

When Dr. Paul Farmer arrived in Haiti in the 1980s, he was a confident young doctor determined to bring modern health care to a population in need. One of his challenges lay in finding a way to get tuberculosis patients to take their medicine. Many were not and were dying because of it. Part of the issue: Most Haitians believed the disease was a product of sorcery, so many considered taking medici...

In the old days, you might visit the same doctor your whole life. Most likely, you had complete trust in his or her judgment, from diagnosing your symptoms to recommending medicines or treatments. You'd get friendly phone calls to follow-up on your progress or schedule routine checkups. And you'd know your local pharmacists by name. These days, it's a whole new world. We move around more, jobs ar...

Every day, millions of people with chronic diseases miss their best chance to control their conditions and improve their health. They may see their doctor regularly, eat right, and exercise, but they skip one of the most important parts of their health plan: their medicine. Overall, 30 to 50 percent of all people with chronic diseases fail to take their medicines as prescribed -- and they can't al...

A pill bottle with a skull and crossbones on it sends a universal warning: DANGER. But in plain view in the average home, dozens of items used every day are potentially hazardous. And when young children touch and swallow things that catch their eye -- peppermint pink cleaning fluid or bright red iron pills -- the substances can be fatal. Hundreds of children were dying from poisoning each year ...

Long before scientists learned how to split the atom, our planet has been radioactive. The rocks and dirt all over the globe crackle with small amounts of uranium, a natural ore that constantly releases radiation. As it decays, uranium also produces radon, a colorless, odorless, radioactive gas that's all around us. Some places have more uranium -- and radon -- than others. In central Montana, peo...

"I'm New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine, and I should be dead." Arguably one of the more important pronouncements of his political career, the then-governor issued these words in a public service announcement once he recovered from injuries suffered in a car accident on April 12, 2007 -- an accident in which he wasn't wearing his seatbelt. Corzine's body was slammed around the inside of his SUV af...

Catch the tail end of a news report on a drug you're taking? If there's something to worry about, chances are the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has issued an alert. The FDA keeps a running archive of drug warnings and food and drug recalls. Click the link below to browse the list. (The most recent are on the top.) http://www.fda.gov/Safe...

Guns are 100 percent safe for kids -- as long as the guns are unloaded, locked away, and never touched. But as soon as a bullet enters the chamber and a hand nears the trigger, guns become a serious hazard to children. According to the National Rifle Association, gunfire kills about one child every day in this country. The NRA also claims that one child dies every week from accidental gunfire. T...