With the heat index expected to be at 105 degrees tomorrow, Baltimore City Health Commissioner Dr. Leana Wen has issued a Code Red Heat Advisory for Tuesday, June 23. The heat index is a measure of air temperature and relative humidity and indicates how hot it feels to individuals outside. This is the first Code Red of the season.
Meet Malachi, a charming toddler I met here. The first puzzle was that Malachi, at the age of 2 years and 4 months, still doesn’t speak. He says only two words: “no” and “ouch.” He doesn’t say “mom” or “dad. As for his inability to speak, that may be because he has tested positive for lead poisoning.
Did you know that almost twice as many men as women die of cardiovascular disease complications? Or that in general men don’t live as long as women do? High school males are more likely than females to smoke cigarettes, and of the 87.3 million Americans with pre-diabetes, almost 60 percent of them are men. Men of Baltimore, it’s time to start being more aware of your health so you can live longer and healthier lives!
Anybody driving through Baltimore knows there's five liquor stores on some blocks, but not a grocery store in sight. And we know during the riots, many of those liquor stores were damaged. While they still need to rebuild, city leaders hope to see a change of product. Dr. Wen says dozens of studies from Baltimore and around the country show a higher density of liquor stores is directly linked to a high rate of violent crime.
While crime surges in post-riot Baltimore, the Safe Streets program has been doing just that in the four areas it operated. They mediate, mentor, teach and break through to a generation that in many ways, only they are qualified to reach. The program aims to treat violence as a disease, and these men are the antibodies.
With forecasted temperatures in the mid-90s, a heat index expected to reach 100 degrees and unhealthy air quality, Baltimore health officials are encouraging residents to take precautions as the first hot weather of the season arrives today. “Individuals should stay indoors in air-conditioning as much as possible and be sure to stay hydrated with water today,” said Dr. Leana Wen, Baltimore City Health Commissioner.
Teen pregnancy rates have fallen across the country and particularly in Baltimore City. Doctors partly credit access to contraception in city schools. "We recently had an unprecedented decrease in the teen birth rate of 32%," Baltimore City Health Commissioner Dr. Leana Wen said.
Chances are you have personally been impacted by cancer, whether you know one of the 13.4 million Americans living after a cancer diagnosis or have memories of someone special in your life who is no longer fighting the fight. Luckily today, more cancer survivors are living long after their diagnoses because of improvements in medical and health services and early detection.
Many Baltimore neighborhoods are trying to put their communities back together after the recent civil unrest and the city Health Department is doing its part too. The Health Department is sending post-graduate fellows into areas to find out from residents how they can help move forward.
As Sarah Ceponis watched the unrest in Baltimore explode in April, her mind went to the underlying public health disparities inherent in neighborhoods such as Sandtown-Winchester. Ceponis, studying for a master's degree in public health at Johns Hopkins, was taking a course on health and well-being in the urban core. She saw the unrest as a "window of opportunity" in which people were actually paying attention to public health issues — such as neighborhood access to pharmacies — that are often ignored.
