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What Being a Domestic Violence Survivor is Like

  by Jeanette R. Harrison, MPH What is being a domestic violence survivor like? It's a complete nightmare. How do I know? I am a domestic violence survivor. I have been a domestic violence survivor since I was physically abused and neglected as a child, and I was, in turn, abused as an adult. In fact, over 75% of domestic violence survivors continue to experience abuse throughout their lifetime.   Contrary to popular myth, children who are abused are more likely to not be abusers... at over 75%. However, children who are abused are more likely to be abused as adults. They experience what is known as poly-victimization . That is, they experience abuse or bullying from multiple individuals.  I could cite a lot of statistics about what being a domestic violence survivor is like. However, I think telling what it is like from my perspective may emphasize my point better. I would like to warn people this may trigger certain individuals. I also would like you to know this i...

Get Your Walk On

The following is an excerpt from the best-selling book, "Get Your Walk On." It's also now an online course!  Foreword I started filming walking videos for the Billion Steps Challenge in January 2020. Then, COVID hit, and my walking videos became about encouraging other people to get outside, how the diffusion of molecules made the disease less likely to spread, how being outside boosted your immune response, and also increased vitamin D production. My walking videos became about my health and encouraging others to be outside because "outside was okay." If you check out How Healthcare Works on Instagram or the How Healthcare Works YouTube channel , you can see the original walking videos from the past two years.  Get Your Walk On is for sale on Amazon I originally started the walking videos in Grain Valley, Missouri. Because of the cold weather in Missouri, many days I would walk around my living room or my basement or do steps in my home just to reach a few thou...

Promote Physical Activity with the Move Your Way® Campaign

This post is courtesy of the Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion (ODPHP).  With all the fitness fads and conflicting health advice flooding our news feeds, it can be hard to catch people’s attention with the physical activity messages that matter. The Move Your Way® campaign can help. ODPHP developed the  Move Your Way campaign  to share key recommendations from the  second edition of the Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans , released in November 2018. Rather than a one-size-fits-all approach, Move Your Way emphasizes personalized, practical strategies that people can use to fit more activity into their busy lives, while clearly communicating the amount and types of physical activity Americans need to stay healthy. And you can help spread the word! The Move Your Way campaign has resources for health professionals, organizations, and communities to reach adults, parents, kids, and older adults. Use our fact sheets, posters, videos, and intera...

Join Us in Celebrating National Public Health Week!

Join How Healthcare Works and the American Public Health Association in celebrating National Public Health Week! Post shared courtesy of the American Public Health Association and National Public Health Week. Public health is crucial and critical to our society. It combats threats to our individual and collective health and promotes practices that help every American live as long and as well as they can. That’s why How Healthcare Works, LLC is excited to be a part of  National Public Health Week 2023 , celebrated April 3-9. This year, we’re joining the  American Public Health Association  in “Centering and Celebrating Cultures in Health.” The COVID-19 pandemic and other ongoing public health crises in the U.S., like racism and climate change, have shown us the importance of a robust public health system equipped to handle the diverse needs of the communities being affected. By working together, we can have a more inclusive system that supports well-being and health equit...

Tell Your COVID Story

March is Women's History Month. The theme for this year is "Celebrate Women Who Tell Our Stories." All of the women who are alive today, each one of us, has a story to tell right now. Right now, today, we are part of history. If you have been alive since 2020, you have a story to tell that is part of history. Your story and the stories of those around you will be studied for years to come.  The pandemic affected all aspects of life. It affected our individual and national economic stability, our neighborhoods and physical environments, our education system, our ability to access and acquire food, our community safety and how we viewed ourselves in society, and our health care system and providers. In public health, we call these things the social determinants of health.   During the pandemic, the Surgeon General issued health advisories regarding health worker burnout and, most recently, the youth mental health crisis in this country. He made these topics priorities for o...

Spring Renew You

Spring is almost here! We finally made it through a record number of days of snowfall in Idaho. I like winter, and I love Spring. I love Spring because we always know it's coming. We have faith that it will be here every year.  Spring is a promise that things are always changing. They change and are renewed or rejuvenated. It is also a time for change and newness. To me, it's a promise that good things are around the corner.  That's why we at How Healthcare Works are offering our course, LIVE  Spring Renew You.  You can register for the course here.  I view renewal as part of nature. You are a part of nature, too. We are all interconnected with the world around us, the people in our lives, and all the sense of renewal. The past few years may have felt like winter season in your life. A time when you endured the cold, hunkered down, focused on the basics, and tried to make it through. Maybe you struggled against the harshness of the winds in your life. You wanted...

Improve Health and Well-being for All with Healthy People 2030

This post shared courtesy of Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion and Healthy People 2030 Since 1980, the Healthy People initiative has set goals and measurable objectives to improve health and well-being in the United States. The initiative's fifth edition, Healthy People 2030, builds on the knowledge gained over the past 4 decades to address current and emerging public health priorities and challenges.   An interdisciplinary team of subject matter experts developed national health objectives and targets for the next 10 years. These objectives focus on the most high-impact public health issues and reflect an increased focus on the social determinants of health — how the conditions where people live, work, and play affect their health and well-being. By using Healthy People 2030 in your work, you can help improve health nationwide! Objectives are organized into intuitive topics so you can easily find data that's relevant to your work. And Healthy People 2030 provid...