Pinterest

Topic: Pinterest https://www.pinterest.com/

Review: 
Pinterest is an online visual bookmarking tool that uses images to link to the sites. You can collect pins and pin to various boards that you create. You can create numerous boards in a number of categories. You can follow other users and see what they have pinned or you can search pins, boards, or pinners using key words.

Pinterest is easy to use and get started. You can login with facebook, twitter, google+, or email. There is a short tutorial to get you started.

Recommended Use for Public Health Messaging:
I would recommend Pinterest for public health messaging for sharing visual information such as infographics or to use images to capture a person attention and link to facts, information, or calls to action.

Public Health Pinterest Boards:
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention http://www.pinterest.com/cdcgov/public-health-infographics/
Iowa Department of Public Health http://www.pinterest.com/iapublichealth/

Resources

Topic: Health Indicators Warehouse http://www.healthindicators.gov/

Review:
The Health Indicators Warehouse contains statistics for over 1,200 different health indicators in various topics such as chronic disease and conditions, health behaviors, and injury and violence. Each indicator contains an over, data, and the option to download.

The site is easy to navigate. You simply need to click on the category of indicator you would like to look for. There is also a glossary of terms, user's guide and an excellent FAQs page.

Recommended Use for Public Health Messaging:
This is helpful information for many different types of health messaging when you want to share data. For example, if you wanted to highlight the disparity in maternal mortality between white and black women, you can find the maternal death indicator. This particular indicator has data from 2007, so it may not be new enough depending on what you are using it for, but the difference is 10 deaths per 100,000 for white women and 26.5 per 100,000 for black women.

This site is excellent for finding data on various health indicators in the U.S.

Other Resources of this type:
WHO Data and Statistics page http://www.who.int/research/en/
National Center for Health Statistics http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/

QR Code Generators

Topic: Fancy QR Code http://www.fancyqrcode.com/

Review:
Fancy QR Code creates codes that direct to websites and is very simple to use. On the left hand side of the page you select whether the site is http:// or https:// then simply put in the web address you want the code to direct to. Click the refresh code content button and the QR code for your desired site generates.

When using this particular code creator, you need to take a screen capture of the code that is generated. If you want to be able to save your code or manipulate it, you need to upgrade to a pro account.


Recommended Use for Public Health Messaging: I'm not really sold on QR codes. Some of the readers are hard to use and in practice, we find that people don't use them. However, one of my favorite uses that I think is the most useful is using a QR code to link to a copy of something that is in hard copy in front of someone or a link to the item that is written about.

For instance, maybe you have a really great poster up regarding making healthy choices, you could provide a QR code that links to an online version of the poster so people could in essence take the poster with them. Or if you have a handout,etc. about the benefits of using MyFitnessPal, the QR code could link to the app store. You'd need two codes, one for Android and one for iOS. 

Other QR Code Generators:
Kaywa QR Code http://qrcode.kaywa.com/
QR Code Generator http://goqr.me/

Feed Readers

Topic: Feedly http://cloud.feedly.com/#welcome

Review:

Is it easy to use/understand? Feedly is very easy to use and understand, you can log in with facebook, twitter, google, etc. You set up your feeds and your ready to go.

Does it have a search feature? It has a very nice  and easy to use search feature.

Can you categorize/organize your feeds? Your feeds can be organized into various groups.

Is it accessible from other devices (cell phone, Kindle Fire, etc.)? There are mobile apps for many different OSs, so it's accessible from most any device.

Is it easy to add feeds to this reader? It's really easy to add feeds. You can use the search feature to search for feeds to add or you can use the RSS link on the site you would like to add.

How does it look? Your feeds are listed on the left and your articles are on the right.

Favorite things about this Feed Reader: You can change the way articles are displayed and the help page is excellent.

Negative things about this Feed Reader: None really, it's a feed reader and it does just that.

What three feeds did you sign up for? I was already using feedly, so 3 of the feeds I have are CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, In the Library with the Lead Pipe, and News from the National Library of Medicine.

Other Feed Readers:

Inoreader http://www.inoreader.com/

The Old Reader https://theoldreader.com/

Discovery Engines

Topic: Prismatic http://getprismatic.com/

Review:

You can sign up with prismatic through facebook, twitter, or using an email account. You choose 10 topics to follow and the site aggregates stories relevant to those topics. You can follow or unfollow topics at any time and are not limited to just 10. You can search for interests, save articles that are relevant to you. It's easy to get started and set up.

Recommended Use for Public Health Messaging:

A discovery engine could be used in order to keep up with various public health topics such as nutrition and health or to keep up with technology that might be useful in relaying public health information.

Other Discovery Engines:

Digg http://digg.com/

Newser http://www.newser.com/

Public Health Image Resources

Site:  Public Health Image Library http://phil.cdc.gov/phil/home.asp

Review:
This site contains photos, illustrations, and videos relating to field of public health that are free for use, with a few exceptions. The images can be used on websites, in campaign materials, presentations and more. 

The image quality of the  pictures on the site is ok. Some are even pretty good, but I was mostly unimpressed. 

The indexing is terrible. The site claims to use MeSH, but if you perform a category search for pregnant women, you get different results than if you search the terms pregnant, pregnancy, etc. The MeSH search should bring up all images of pregnant women no matter what the keyword labels are. Most of the sites I viewed were very difficult to search, but I expected more from the CDC.

On the homepage there are featured collections including Health Behaviors and Everyday Activities which were the first two that I clicked on. Health Behaviors says it includes images depicting actions that keep people healthy and safe, but when you click on it, the first 3 pages of images are of food (potatoes and fish mostly, but also lobsters and crabs in tanks and a few veggies), turtles, a snake, various birds, and rats on display in pet stores. There aren't even any people until you hit the fourth page.

Recommended Use for Public Health Messaging:  
There are images that would be valuable for public health messaging such as images that show people getting the flu vaccine, exercising, choosing health foods, etc., but it's hard to find what you're looking for.

Similar Tools: 
WikiMedia Commons http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page
NIH Image Bank https://imagebank.nih.gov/

Public Health Widgets

Site: CDC Widgets and Gadgets http://www.cdc.gov/widgets/

Review:

Include the following in your blog posting review: 

CDC Widgets has a fairly long list of available widgets covering many topics, from the flu to asthma to winter weather health and safety. All of the widgets are free to use on your website. You just need to copy and embed the code.

Using the CDC widgets site was quite easy. I found the widget I wanted, copied the code, and embedded it into my website.

Recommended Use for Public Health Messaging:

Widgets can be used in various ways for public health messaging. To name just a few, they can help people find places, like testing sites for sexually transmitted infections, help people calculate BMI, and link to other sites with more information.

Similar Widget Sites: 

Health Widgets http://healthfinder.gov/StayConnected/HealthWidgets.aspx
Public Health Emergency Widgets http://www.hhs.gov/web/services/library/phewidgets.html