Self Service Health Care Unveiled in Georgia

/24-7/ -- Rural Georgians are less healthy than those living in urban areas. They are more likely to be under-insured or uninsured and they are more likely to suffer from heart disease, obesity, diabetes and cancer.

In a pioneering attempt to improve these statistics, free, user-friendly health information technology is being unveiled today in Blakely, Georgia (Early County).

The National Health Museum (NHM) of Atlanta, the Georgia Department of Community Health (DCH) and SoloHealth are unveiling Georgia's first Personal Health Advisor (PHA). The digital system is a new way for residents to learn about their health by the simple touch of a computer screen.

The PHA unit is a free-standing kiosk device that is being piloted and evaluated at the Primary Care of Southwest Georgia (PCSG) community clinic, 360 College Street in Blakely, Georgia. In addition to no-charge use of the kiosk, activities for Early County residents will include free health screenings and a health fair organized by DCH. After its initial stay in Early County, NHM plans to collaborate with DCH to make the PHA available for statewide use.

The PHA developed by SoloHealth and the NHM is the newest health information delivery platform. It allows users to assess their risk for overweight and obesity, high blood pressure, and diabetes. PHA users can also access interactive information about STDs and vaccines.

"We're pleased to be collaborating with DCH to develop innovative ways to improve the health of Georgians," said Louis W. Sullivan, M.D., the Museum's chairman. "We look forward to expanding this concept throughout the state of Georgia and beyond. In Blakely and Early County, where my brother Walter and I grew up, being healthy is not only beneficial for individuals and families, but also is fundamental for economic development and quality of life."

"The PHA is a great example of how the National Health Museum is using new technology to create educational tools that help people change their behavior and live healthier lifestyles," said David Roland, NHM's president and CEO. "This is just the beginning of a series of new health and life science activities that we will be announcing during the coming year."

The PHA is designed to be user-friendly for people of all ages and education levels, and for those with limited technology experience. The kiosk's touch screen features two "physician tour guides" to help patients answer questions about their health and health knowledge. Users enter non-identifiable demographic data and answer health status questions, and within minutes they are provided with a custom risk assessment printout, along with action-oriented tips for healthy living, and local and national health resources. To protect user privacy, no personal information is collected.

"We are proud to be partnering with the NHM and the Georgia DCH. We have a shared mission to increase access to health care while reducing health care costs. This new technology empowers consumers to learn about their own health and encourages them to take action," said Bart Foster, SoloHealth's Founder and CEO.Early County was identified as an ideal location to launch the program because of the community's significant health care needs coupled with a shortage of health resources. The PHA system will remain in Blakely for testing over the next few months.

The project was jointly funded by DCH and a matching grant from The Charles and Catherine B. Rice Foundation of Atlanta, in association with Early County 2055, Inc.

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Georgia Tech Information Security Center Releases Emerging Cyber Threats Forecast for 2009

(BUSINESS WIRE)--The Georgia Tech Information Security Center (GTISC), a national leader in information security research and education, today announced the release of the GTISC Emerging Cyber Threats Report for 2009, outlining the top five areas of security concern and risk for consumer and enterprise Internet users for the coming year. The report was released at the annual GTISC Security Summit on Emerging Cyber Security Threats – a gathering of leading industry and academic leaders from organizations with a stake in protecting the online user community.

For 2009, GTISC is forecasting five key cyber security areas where threats are expected to increase and evolve:

* Malware— specifically under the guise of benign social networking links
* Botnets – specifically the spread of botnet attacks to wireless and peer-to-peer networks
* Cyber warfare — including targets on the U.S. economy and infrastructure
* Threats to VoIP and Mobile Convergence—specifically voice fraud and cellular botnets
* The Evolving Cyber Crime Economy – including the rise of sophisticated malware-for-sale kits and programs

According to the report, data will continue to be the primary motive behind future cyber crime – whether targeting traditional fixed computing environments or mobile applications. Experts from across the IT security spectrum – from government to industry to academia – join GTISC’s call for closer coordination between the security industry, Internet Service Providers (ISPs), application developers and government regulators to safeguard the user community and hinder the spread of sophisticated cyber security threats.

“At GTISC, we strongly believe that a proactive approach to understanding emerging threats will help us develop more effective information security technologies and strategies,” said Mustaque Ahamad, director of GTISC. “The annual GTISC Security Summit on Emerging Cyber Security Threats and this report seek to give us a better understanding of the increasingly sophisticated cyber security challenges we will face in the years ahead. We wish to thank the esteemed members of the IT security community who assisted us with the creation of this report.”

More than 300 corporate executives, industry leaders and technologists from across the country attended the GTISC Security Summit on Emerging Cyber Security Threats, keynoted by Lt. General Robert J. Elder, Jr., Commander Eighth Air Force of the Barksdale Air Force Base. Following Lt. Elder’s address on “Global Operations and Mission Assurance in a Contested Cyber Environment” in the morning, Summit panelists engaged in a lively discussion moderated by IT Security Entrepreneur, Thomas E. Noonan. This year’s panelists, from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, IBM Internet Security Systems, the Georgia Institute of Technology, Cisco, Motorola and SecureWorks, helped to educate the audience on the proliferation of cyber threats, including those listed in the report, and highlighted possible countermeasures to safeguard the user and business communities.

To view the entire GTISC Emerging Cyber Threats for 2009 report or to watch a pre-recorded Web cast of the Summit, please visit http://www.gtiscsecuritysummit.com.

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Political Science Experiments Show Media Corrections Could Backfire

With less than a month to go before the November election, voters are weighing the information they’ve received about the candidates in preparation for the voting booth. But what happens when the information they’ve been given is wrong?

Jason Reifler, an assistant professor of political science at Georgia State, set out to examine the effects of political misinformation and attempts to correct that information on the public. They gave news articles that contained slightly misleading information to a group of volunteers. Half of that group then received corrections to the misleading information. The results were surprising.

“We started this research actually trying to figure out what strategies would best enable the media or other sources to be able to try and correct misperceptions that people hold,” Reifler said. “And what we found instead was that giving people a slightly misleading statement as part of a newspaper article and then giving some people corrections, that some people actually ended up believing the thing that was wrong even more fervently after being given the correction.”

Given their findings, Reifler and research partner Brendan Nyhan of Duke University will now shift their focus to examine why media corrections don’t work and what can be done to make corrections more effective. One possible explanation is that voters feel their sense of self is being threatened when they receive information that runs counter to their beliefs.

“We’re looking at interventions that increase people’s self-esteem or sense of self, and that if you reinforce those, are people therefore more open to counterattitudinal information?” Reifler said. “The long-term hope is that we’ll actually be able to give strategies to the media, to politicians, so that we’re able to have a better political debate.”

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