May Digest: National Women’s Health Week Edition

Health Professional Digest Volume 2, Issue 5

The HHS Office on Women’s Health (OWH) knows how important it is for you to have the latest information on prevention and treatment to help you best serve your patients. Each month, we will share a curated list of tools and resources that you can immediately put into practice. National Women’s Health Week — News You Can Use This National Women’s Health Week (NWHW), millions of women across the United States are taking steps to improve their health. The annual observance (May 12–18, 2019) serves as a reminder for women to make their health a priority and build positive health habits for life. When it comes to engaging in healthy behaviors, no two women are the same — they are on different health journeys and have different goals, obstacles, responsibilities, experiences, and motivations. As a health professional, you play a key role in caring for and helping women overcome barriers and uncover what motivates them to find their health. Throughout NWHW and beyond, use the following tools to encourage your patients find ways to put these five key behaviors into practice: Visit a doctor or nurse for a well-woman visit (checkup), preventive screenings, and vaccines. Get active. Eat healthy. Pay attention to mental health, including getting enough sleep and managing stress. Practice safe behaviors, such as quitting smoking, not texting while driving, and taking steps to protect yourself from sexually transmitted infections. Healthy Living by Age Women’s health needs change as they age, but the foundation for good health stays the same. Whether your patients are in their 20s, 40s, or 90s, you can use OWH’s Healthy Living by Age checklists to help them build positive health habits for life. Training Series: Helping Adolescent Girls Achieve and Maintain a Healthy Weight Pediatric and adolescent health care providers have a unique opportunity to help girls reach and stay at a healthy weight. OWH has developed a free, accredited online training seriesthat equips providers with evidence-based strategies for compassionate, targeted weight management and obesity prevention for girls. Participants will receive 1 CME/CEU credit per course. Help Your Patients Avoid Substance Misuse The Surgeon General’s recent Advisory on Naloxone and Opioid Overdose outlines ways you, as a health professional, can encourage use and availability of the overdose-reversing drug naloxone among individuals with opioid use disorder or who are at elevated risk for opioid overdose. Additionally, this directory from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) allows you to search for opioid treatment programs by state to help your patients find local treatment programs. Mental Health Screening Tools Despite the high prevalence of mental health and substance abuse problems, many Americans go without treatment, in part because their disorder goes undiagnosed. Use these screening tools from SAMHSA to provide regular screenings for your patients of all ages in primary care and other health care settings. Share With Your Patients: Encourage your patients to review the following resources: OWH’s Find Your Health tool OWH’s Getting Active webpage OWH’s Healthy eating and women fact sheet OWH’s Top Questions About Fitness and Women fact sheet CDC’s Attention Adults: You Need Vaccines Too! Vaccines.gov’s vaccine finder For more updates on women’s health, follow OWH on Twitter.