As school leaders and parents grapple with questions about school reopening this fall, a key measure to consider is the community transmission rate of COVID-19, say two educators and an infectious disease specialist.
When states and cities are reporting that more than 5% of COVID-19 tests are positive, the transmission rate is high enough that schools could become hot spots for community outbreaks, they said. Continue reading
Photo: Pedro Presilha via Flickr
Across the U.S., tooth decay remains widespread. Poor and minority Americans continue to be disproportionately burdened by disease. But in recent years, some progress has been made in addressing oral health disparities and reaching vulnerable children with needed dental services, federal data show.
According to newly released findings from the 2011-16 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES): Continue reading
Photo: Self Magazine via Flickr
Photos accompanying news stories about vaccines are notoriously awful, both in effect and in verisimilitude. They often feature large needles that have little resemblance to the actual needles used to administer immunizations.
Or they are real images but feature an utterly terrified child screaming as though Satan himself were injecting demon blood into their veins. (Note: Most vaccines are administered into the muscle, not the bloodstream.) Continue reading
Rebecca Dineen
Rebecca Dineen, assistant commissioner for the Bureau of Maternal and Child Health at the Baltimore City Health Department, will be the awards luncheon speaker for Health Journalism 2019 in Baltimore on Saturday, May 4.
Dineen joined the Baltimore City Health Department in 2008 and leads the B’more for Healthy Babies campaign, which promotes proper infant sleeping practices to reduce the risk of sleep-related deaths in children under age one. The campaign offers parents and other caregivers best practices to promote safe sleep and breastfeeding. It also works to reduce teen pregnancy. Continue reading
Photo: Josh Mazgelis via Flickr
The good news is that nearly 80 percent of American kids are brushing their teeth by the age of 1, according to federal data.
The bad news is that nearly 40 percent of them may be using too much toothpaste, new research from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggests. Continue reading
Photo: Omar Bárcena via Flickr
A state jury found a former Hawaii dentist not guilty of manslaughter and other criminal charges related to the highly publicized death of a 3-year-old girl under her care.
It was the latest development in a nearly five-year-old case that focused attention on the potential risks to children who receive anesthesia or other sedation as part of a dental procedure. Continue reading