Archive for the ‘Disease Awareness’ Category

kmaynard
Katherine
Maynard

Chronic Monday: Diabetes and Behavioral Economics

Monday, March 8th, 2010

This is the first in our series titled "Chronic Monday," which will highlight pertinent issues in the chronic disease community.

According to a study published in the American Journal of Preventative Medicine, learning that you are about to develop diabetes isn't enough to trigger the behavior changes necessary to stave off the disease.  Compounding the challenge for prevention advocates is this statistic: approximately one of every three adults in America are prediabetic, but less than 10 percent of them are aware of it. As many of us already know, diabetes is one serious disease with life threatening implications. According to the American Diabetes Association, more than 65% of people with diabetes will die from heart disease or stroke. (more...)

Posted in Chronic Disease, Disease Awareness, Public Health
By Katherine Maynard | 1 Comment »

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jseng
John
Seng

The Dr. Oz Show To Bring Mass Exposure To Rare Disease

Wednesday, February 24th, 2010

Yesterday, we accompanied our pro bono client, The Progeria Research Foundation (PRF), to a taping of The Dr. Oz Show at NBC Studios in New York. You know, 30 Rock.

(l-r), Genetics Expert Jeffrey Innis, MD, PhD, Mott Children’s Hospital, University of Michigan; Television’s Dr. Oz; John Seng, President, Spectrum

(From left to right) Genetics Expert Jeffrey Innis, MD, PhD, Mott Children’s Hospital, University of Michigan; Television’s Dr. Oz; John Seng, President, Spectrum

Spectrum has worked closely with PRF since 2003 to raise awareness of Progeria, a rare, and thus far incurable disease that causes rapid aging among children. Most children live no longer than 20 years. (more...)

Posted in Disease Awareness, Public Health, Research
By John Seng | 2 Comments »

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kwalsh
Kevin
Walsh

Crowdsourcing for a Cause

Tuesday, February 16th, 2010

I just read an excellent article about crowdsourcing health care solutions by Eliot Van Buskirk at Wired.  The article, titled "Harvard-Based Crowdsource Project Seeks New Diabetes Answers," describes in great detail a new initiative to crowd source diabetes information with an end goal of curing Type I diabetes.  (Almost 2.4 million people in the US suffer from Type I diabetes.) "Using federal stimulus funding from the National Institutes of Health, Harvard Catalyst has teamed up with InnoCentive to explore whether open innovation and crowd-sourcing can spark new directions, collaborations and research in the healthcare community."

Congratulations to the National Institutes of Health for funding this and to Harvard's medical research department for developing this crowdsourced medical initiative sure to help those with Type I diabetes.

What's particularly interesting about the first phase of this project is the goal of ideation. The project's initial objective is not to identify a specific cure, but to start with the basic premises that there are questions or criteria that may not have been considered before now. (more...)

Posted in Community Involvement, Crowdsourcing, Disease Awareness, Health 2.0, Health Care Industry
By Kevin Walsh | No Comments »

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Spectrum

Colorectal Cancer Screening Saves Lives

Friday, February 5th, 2010
NIH State-of-the-Science Conference: Enhancing Use and Quality of Colorectal Cancer Screening

NIH State-of-the-Science Conference: Enhancing Use and Quality of Colorectal Cancer Screening

Since the start of the New Year, Spectrum has attended several events focused on colorectal cancer, the second-leading cause of cancer-related deaths in the U.S. On January 28, Olympus and C3: Colorectal Cancer Coalition brought together many of the nation's preeminent colorectal cancer experts for "The State of Colorectal Cancer Screening and Prevention Forum" to discuss the importance of colorectal cancer screening. The message delivered from each of the panel members, who ranged in background from MDs and PhDs to legislative and advocacy experts, was clear - screening for this disease saves lives.

F. Mark Gumz, President and CEO of Olympus, noted that "We have the technology and expertise today to effectively prevent and treat CRC, but unfortunately, there are still close to 150,000 new cases and 50,000 deaths annually from this disease." Laura Seeff, MD, who manages the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) Screen for Life Awareness Campaign, reported that "If everyone aged 50 years or older were screened regularly, as many as 60 percent of deaths from this cancer could be avoided." (more...)

Posted in Disease Awareness
By Spectrum | No Comments »

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Melissa Biller
Melissa
Biller

The ePharma Consumer Has Spoken … Now What?

Friday, January 22nd, 2010

Every day, ordinary consumers flock to the internet to look for health information. This action may be the result of seeing an advertisement on TV, having a conversation with a physician, or a host of other reasons-the fact is, the numbers are growing at an astonishing pace and the search trends are growing even more interesting.

Yesterday, I tuned into a Manhattan Research webinar that discussed results from the ePharma Consumer® v9.0 study. The study was fielded during Q4 2009 so it is an accurate representation of the current landscape (To get more background information on the survey methodology, check out the brochure). The 30-minute webinar was hosted by Meredith Ressi (@MeredithRessi) who provided valuable insights regarding consumer trust, online health videos, and condition vs. product sites. (more...)

Posted in Disease Awareness, Health 2.0, Health Care Industry, PR Industry, Tweets
By Melissa Biller | No Comments »

 
mcover
Michael
Cover

Growing a Moustache and Fighting Cancer

Monday, November 2nd, 2009

I'm growing a moustache for the month of November. Why am I blogging about it? To combat men's cancer.

I'm not looking forward to it. It's going to look unprofessional for a week or so. It will be itchy. And, it will be more salt than pepper.

So why am I doing this? Because it is SOMETHING I can do to combat a feeling of helplessness while my younger brother fights cancer. The discomfort I feel over the next 30 days pales in comparison to the discomfort he is in while he battles through weeks of chemotherapy and endless fatigue.

(more...)

Posted in Disease Awareness
By Michael Cover | 2 Comments »

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