Day: January 2, 2014

The University of Pittsburgh has released Project Tycho, a collection of disease surveillance reports in the United States going back 125 years. Project Tycho provides open access to U.S. weekly surveillance data from 1888 to the present with a free log in.

A core team of scientists from the University of Pittsburgh collected weekly notifiable disease surveillance tables published between 1888 and 2013 from various historical reports that included the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. Many of these approximately 6,500 tables were only available in paper or other formats that were not readable by computers. Thus they needed to be hand-entered to be digitized for the project. The data includes death counts, reporting locations, time periods
and diseases.

The most complete and standardized data is in Level 1 and includes 8 diseases. Level 2 data has been standardized and includes 47 diseases, 50 states, and over 1,000 cities. Level 3 data has not been standardized but will be provided upon request. It includes 56 diseases, 50 states, over 100 counties, and nearly 3,000 cities.

Details on the methodology, levels of data, and more are available on the Project Tycho website.

An article about Project Tycho was published in the New England Journal of Medicine on November 28th titled, “Contagious diseases in the United States from 1888 to the present.” To read it, you can go to the CDPH Special Contracted Services page. Then scroll down to click on PubMed under Key Resources. Once there, you can enter the PMID number 24283231 or title for this article in the search box to access it.

Are you working in the maternal and child health arena and looking to improve or update your skills? The MCH Navigator project might help. It was launched by the Maternal and Child Health Bureau (MCHB) of the U.S. DHHS to address the professional development needs of the field.

The MCH Navigator is a centralized portal for pursuing continuous learning in maternal and child health. It was designed as a learning portal for maternal and child health professionals, students, and others working to improve the health and well being of women, children, and families. The free modules and learning resources here are meant to complement formal college and graduate level educational programs.

The website includes learning resources on basic information in MCH, conceptual models, management, epidemiology, leadership, and communication. Continuing Education Credits or completion certificates are offered for some of these units. You’ll find resources on topics from socioecological models to basic epidemiology for data users to program planning and evaluation.

The MCH Navigator at Georgetown University is funded by a grant from the Maternal and Child Health Bureau.

The Public Health Library has the following new books available in print:

1. Cultural diversity in health and illness. By Rachel E Spector. Boston: Pearson, 2013.
Table of contents available at: http://oskicat.berkeley.edu/record=b20413864~S1
Call number: RA418.5.T73 S64 2013.

2. The evolving threat of antimicrobial resistance: options for action. By World Health Organization. Geneva, Switzerland: World Health Organization, 2012.
Table of contents available at: http://oskicat.berkeley.edu/record=b20230738~S1
Call number: QR177 .E96 2012.
Also available online at: http://whqlibdoc.who.int/publications/2012/9789241503181_eng.pdf

3. Health communication message design: theory and practice. By Hyunyi Cho. Thousand Oaks, Calif. SAGE Publications, 2012.
Table of contents available at: http://oskicat.berkeley.edu/record=b20415719~S1
Call number: RA423.2 .H423 2012.

and here are some new titles available online from the National Academies Press:

4. Research Progress on Environmental, Health, and Safety Aspects of Engineered Nanomaterials. By Committee to Develop a Research Strategy for Environmental Studies and Toxicology; Board on Chemical Sciences and Technology (BCST); National Materials and Manufacturing Board (NMMB); Division on Earth and Life Studies (DELS); Division on Engineering and Physical Sciences (DEPS); National Research Council, 2013.
Available online at: http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18475
(free registration required to download pdf)

5. Leveraging Culture to Address Health Inequalities: Examples from Native Communities: Workshop Summar. By Karen M. Anderson and Steve Olson, Rapporteurs; Roundtable on the Promotion of Health Equity and the Elimination of Health Disparities; Board on Population Health and Public Health Practice; Institute of Medicine, 2013.
Available online at: http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18496
(free registration required to download pdf)

6. Educating the Student Body: Taking Physical Activity and Physical Education to School. By Harold W. Kohl III and Heather D. Cook, Editors. Committee on Physical Activity and Physical Education in the School Environment; Food and Nutrition Board (FNB); Institute of Medicine, 2013.
Available online at: http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18314
(free registration required to download pdf)

Please note that these books are only a small selection of what is newly available. If you are interested in checking out any book(s), submit a request using our online form and we will mail the book(s) to you.

You may also log into your web portal account to request book(s).

If you do not currently possess a UC Berkeley library card, you will need to apply for one before we can check out a book to you.