Since the COVID-19 vaccines became a reality in late 2020, the media have been discussing vaccine cards and vaccine passports. Now that obtaining the vaccine is theoretically possible for nearly every American adult who wants it (I say theoretically because there are structural barriers in place for many Americans that make it difficult for them …
Continue reading “No, HIPAA Doesn’t Cover That: HIPAA, Vaccination Proof, and Vaccination Mandates”
May is Mental Health Awareness Month. Mental health is just as important as physical health, but it’s often overlooked in American society. For starters, when we hear “mental illness,” many of us automatically think someone must “be crazy” and have severe mental health issues. But this is not the case. The American Psychiatric Association (APA, …
If there’s anything we have learned from the pandemic, it’s that health information and misinformation are plentiful. We’ve also learned that health news can be incredibly confusing when it’s coming at us rapidly. How do we start to make sense of the health news articles we read, whether or not they’re about COVID, when we …
Continue reading “Making Sense of Health News and Information”
February brought us exciting news about vaccines as well as troubling news about COVID-19 variants. There has been confusion about how these variants may impact vaccine effectiveness. Hopefully this blog post helps clear up some of that confusion. New Variants In the last couple of months, new variants (strains or mutations) of COVID have been …
If you’ve set foot in your local supermarkets lately, you may have noticed cleaning products appearing on the shelves again. In some cases, sales are limited to one or two items per person, and brand name items like Lysol spray and wipes may still be rare finds. Thanks to “the great fomite freakout,” (Morris as …
COVID-19 vaccine distribution has begun, and the vaccines hitting the market at the time of this posting are mRNA vaccines. Consumers have many questions about this new vaccine technology. Below are some of the common questions and answers. Any concerns specific to your health and your individual decisions should be discussed with your physician. What …
A COVID-19 vaccine is quickly becoming a reality, with Pfizer and Moderna set to obtain emergency use authorization of their vaccines in mid-December with limited distribution soon after; both of these vaccines have been over 90% effective in phase three clinical trials. AstraZeneca believes its vaccine could be available in January 2021. Understandably, there is …
Continue reading “Operation Warp Speed- COVID-19 Vaccine Clinical Trials”
I don’t want this blog to turn into correcting the media reports about COVID or pointing out their flaws (check out HealthNewsReview.org for that), but I do think it’s important to point out some common misconceptions people have after reading media reports about science; these misconceptions have only been heightened during COVID, especially as more …
Continue reading “COVID-19 Reporting and Scientific Communication Confusion”
October is health literacy month, so it’s appropriate to use this as the month I kick off a blog about health information. According to the Health Resources and Services Administration, health literacy is “the degree to which individuals have the capacity to obtain, process, and understand basic health information needed to make appropriate health decisions.” …
Hello, everyone. Welcome to my blog, A Healthy Dose of Health Information. The purpose of this blog is to provide you with evidence-based information on a variety of health topics. As a librarian (you can learn about my health sciences library background on my website’s About page), I know there is far too much misinformation …
Continue reading “Welcome to A Healthy Dose of Health Information”
Christina J. Steffy