iThumb? I don't think so

The iPhone recently launched to much fanfare around the globe, further highlighting our desire for constant electronic communication, at least for the younger generation. But with text messaging, instant messaging and email all at your fingertips, should you worry about getting “Blackberry thumb?”

“Doubtful,” said Jerome Congleton, Ph.D., professor at the Texas A&M Health Science Center School of Rural Public Health and an expert in ergonomics and occupational health.

“Moderation in life and ergonomics is the key. If you are going do a lot of keying, an external mouse and keyboard is the answer along with raising your flat screen. The likelihood of repetitive motion injury (from cell phones) is not likely because of the recovery period between usages.”

While you may worry about your children, parents or even grandparents “texting” too much, a bigger concern is sending and reading messages while driving, which is not an uncommon occurrence. Since phones have been in cars, experts have said the safest way to talk is to pull off the road and park. The same advice holds true for reading and sending messages.

A&M Team Tackles WAter

Institute for Public Health and Water Quality Chairman Paul Hunter stood in the foyer of the Reynolds Medical Building on the Texas A&M University campus and revealed a staggering statistic.

Around the globe, he said, a child dies from a water-borne disease every eight to 10 seconds.

But Hunter said he hoped to decrease that mortality rate with help from a new partnership between the institute and the Texas A&M Health Science Center School of Rural Public Health.

"I hope this is an incredibly long-term venture that really makes a difference in people's lives," said Hunter, a professor at the University of East Anglia in England and a leading expert on water and health.

The partnership between the School of Rural Public Health and the Institute for Public Health and Water Quality, which has relocated to College Station from the University of Illinois, was formally announced Tuesday.

As part of the collaboration, the School of Rural Public Health will establish a Center for Excellence in Public Health and Water Research that will tackle issues related to contaminated drinking water, water conservation and safe reuse of water.

"I think this begins our commitment to improve drinking water quality in the United States and worldwide," said Roderick McCallum, interim dean of the School of Rural Public Health and vice president for academic affairs for the Health Science Center.

The Institute for Public Health and Water Quality was incorporated as a nonprofit organization in 2005 while at the School of Public Health at the University of Illinois at Chicago. The independent institute focuses on science and education and stresses public health through safe drinking water.

Institute Executive Director Jennie Ward-Robinson said she and others looked at several universities -- including the University of California, Berkeley, and Emory University -- before deciding on a location. After they looked at the faculty and research at Texas A&M, it became obvious where the institute needed to be, she said.

"At the end of the day ... there was no doubt this was the place for IPWR to call home," Ward-Robinson said.

The institute is under the School of Rural Public Health, and researchers are expected to partner with their counterparts in related Texas A&M University departments.

Hunter said he and others were drawn to Texas A&M because it featured, in one place, all the necessary fields of study -- environmental engineering, agriculture and small-scale water engineering, in particular. He also lauded the School of Rural Public Health, the only school of its kind focused on rural health.

"Water-borne diseases and water problems are very much a rural health problem," Hunter said, explaining the difficulty of providing to rural residents a system that is both cost-efficient and easy to operate.

Hunter pointed to a previous project in Puerto Rico as a real-world example of the work that would be done by the partnership. Often researchers make the mistake of going into a community and implementing a complicated system without providing the necessary training, he said.

"All right, you'll do," Hunter said, explaining how community members are often randomly selected. "I'm going to talk to you for an hour about water quality. Won't that be good?"

But researchers have found that it is more efficient to offer in-depth training to an elected member of the community. In such cases, he said, results have shown that water quality goes up and deaths go down.

The new partnership hopes to duplicate results from Puerto Rico on a better-defined scale in Trinidad, he said.

If that effort succeeds, researchers can take their evidence-based results to policymakers and help them make informed decisions on water-quality standards, said Hunter and Nancy Dickey, president of the Health Science Center and vice chancellor for health affairs.

"As you well know, the Health Science Center is dedicated to fostering ... scientific discoveries and translating them into real-world solutions," Dickey said, adding that the partnership would "truly highlight the number of programs offered by both the university and the Health Science Center."

-Holly Huffman, The Eagle

Brazos Valley Garners Award

A national award recognizing a commitment to healthy living will make the Brazos Valley a role model for communities hoping to become senior-friendly, local officials said Wednesday.

The Brazos Valley was one of seven U.S. sites that received an award recently from the Environmental Protection Agency for its community-wide efforts to provide a healthy and welcoming environment for seniors.

People from more than 40 groups across the Brazos Valley worked together to apply for the award, which is called Excellence in Building Healthy Communities for Active Aging. Representatives from some of those groups gathered Wednesday afternoon in downtown Bryan to celebrate the honor.

The recognition will attract retirees to the area and help leverage future support for senior-focused programs, according to Marcia Ory, a professor at the Texas A&M Health Science Center School of Rural Public Health.

"It's worth more than a $5,000 award," Ory said. "It will put the Brazos Valley on the map for being innovative, creative, forward-thinking and senior-friendly."

Ory -- who is director of Active for Life, a national program that develops physical activity programs for older adults -- was part of the original EPA committee that developed the program to encourage building communities that are good for the environment and encourage an active lifestyle among seniors.

The Brazos Valley Council of Governments, along with organizations in Minnesota, Arkansas, Maryland and Maine, received commitment awards, which recognize communities that are planning and beginning to integrate programs for the elderly. Organizations in Georgia and Washington received achievement awards for implementing those initiatives.

Ory emphasized that the region hasn't reached its goal yet.

"We're not where we need to be, but we're at the table," she said.

What made the Brazos Valley stand out from other applicants, she said, is voluntary partnerships between academic, health care, business and policy organizations to work toward a common goal.

She said it's unusual for people to collaborate on this issue across multiple cities and counties.

Applying for the award last year was the first project of the Brazos Valley Building Healthy Communities Coalition, which is based in the Brazos Valley Council of Governments along with the Area Agency on Aging, Council of Governments Executive Director Tom Wilkinson said.

"That's the reason the [Council of Governments] is involved -- it's something that stretches across the region," he explained Wednesday.

The 200-page application that the coalition submitted to the EPA highlights five local projects that help seniors: a periodic health status assessment published by the Brazos Valley Health Partnership since 2003, Wolf Pen Creek Park, a Web site that allows physicians to locate physical activity centers for their patients, downtown Bryan revitalization and the Area Agency on Aging's transportation program, which stretches across the eight counties.

Area Agency on Aging manager Ronnie Gipson coordinates the transportation program, which officials said was one of the main strengths of the application.

"This award lays the groundwork for us to do future planning," Gipson said. "We are now nationally recognized as a healthy community -- as a viable community for seniors."

Working for seniors has a "filter-down effect," according to Cathy Liles, a researcher at the School of Rural Public Health who took the lead in compiling the application material. Creating a good environment for seniors helps younger people as well.

For example, she said, building a playground is exclusively for kids, but building walking trails accessible to seniors means people of all ages can benefit.

Members of the coalition said they are looking at future options, which include building community gardens, improving transportation and providing more affordable housing for seniors.

"This is just the start," Ory said. "That's the whole purpose of the award: It serves as a foundation and then you soar."

-Janet Phelps, Bryan Eagle

Dr. Tai-Seale joins national health services research organization

Ming Tai-Seale, Ph.D., M.P.H., associate professor at the Texas A&M Health Science Center School of Rural Public Health, recently was chosen to serve as chair-elect within the AcademyHealth Organization, the premier professional organization in her field.

The AcademyHealth Organization is a national organization for health services researchers, policy analysts and practitioners. It contains several interest groups covering a broad range of health research and policy interests. The largest is the Health Economics Interest Group, with more than 2,000 members and of which Dr. Tai-Seale has been as a member of its advisory board for the past three years and is now chair-elect.

The group is dedicated to promoting excellence in health economics research, providing a forum for emerging ideas and empirical results of health economics research, and fostering the development and dissemination of the best health economics research to influence health policy and clinical practice.

“AcademyHealth has been my professional home since the beginning of my career,” Dr. Tai-Seale said. “I have benefited a great deal from sharing ideas with fellow health economists. It is an honor to be asked to serve the Health Economics Interest Group as the chair-elect. I look forward to working with the interest group members and other volunteer members of the advisory board to advance the field.”

The Texas A&M Health Science Center provides the state with health education, outreach and research. Its six colleges located in communities throughout Texas are Baylor College of Dentistry, the College of Medicine, the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, the Institute of Biosciences and Technology, the Irma Lerma Rangel College of Pharmacy, and the School of Rural Public Health.

Aging: Mental Health Overlooked in Care of Elderly Patients

Depression and other mental illnesses are common among the elderly, and when they get treatment, it usually comes from their primary care doctors. But a new study suggests that those doctors may devote too little time to talking about those ailments.

When researchers reviewed videotapes of 385 appointments with elderly patients in three separate areas, they found the median time spent discussing mental health was just two minutes.

The study, which appeared in the December issue of The Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, was led by Ming Tai-Seale of the School of Rural Public Health at Texas A&M.

More than half the patients whose survey responses suggested they were depressed never spoke with their doctors at all about their emotional state. The subject came up in about a fifth of the visits over all.

But even when patients let their doctors know about their problems, the study found, the responses were often ineffective or worse.

-ERIC NAGOURNEY, New York Times