CorvallisHealth

CorvallisHealth has been a 3 year long experiment in using micro-blogging to help keep a local community healthy. As of July 17, 2012, I am suspending tweeting from this account as I am now employed by a health organization. Until I have a chance to explore possible conflicts of interest, I am hesitant to posts tweets.

CorvallisHealth chirps out tweets you can use for healthier living in Corvallis, Oregon.

Throughout the week I will be tweeting 140 characters of locally focused, health information.  I’ll keep the tweets down to at the most, one message a day, not force you to go to a webpage, and keep it organized to help you plan your time.

CorvallisHealth is also a bit of an experiment.  I am a biomedical informaticist, which is someone studying heathcare and information.  As part of my research, and career path, I have been looking into tools such as Twitter to help convey healthcare information.  I want to see what I can do even without being professionally associated with a local healthcare organization. (You can find my more corporate related medical tweetings at john-norris as well as other healthcare related work on the rest of this website.)  So, in exchange for what I think is some helpful information, you may find some things changing as I try out new ideas.

As this experiment includes you, I thought it would be helpful about who I am and what I am doing.  This might also help folks send me constructive comments.

FAQ:

Who are you?

• I’m John Norris.

Why Corvallis?

• While I think some of the what I am doing can be done in any town, I am familiar with Corvallis, and it seems to have good demographics for this experiment.

Who’s paying you?

• I am currently employed by a healthcare provider and have suspended my tweets.
• No one, but I may be open to offers 😉   Seriously, there will be times when I tweet about services in the area, perhaps a restaurant, or event.  At this point I am not receiving anything for these tweets.  If things change, I will let folks know on this page (or whatever website my tweets are associated with.)  I am not currently soliciting sponsorships, this is not, currently, my profession.

No website community about Corvallis and health?

• I’d really like to do one, but simply do not have the time at this point. I am focusing on the tweets, and microblogging in general.  I am putting a hashtag of #cvo at the end of my tweets so that others can find  each other.

What’s #cvo?

• CVO (or KCVO) is the designator for the Corvallis Municipal Airport.  This is like Portland being ‘PDX’.  I am re-thinking about using #cvo as it has not caught on locally, and others are using it.

Here’s my current idea on the weekly posts:

Nxt: Sunday.  A quick, health planning guide for the upcoming week; namely weather, allergies, colds, etc…  Getting information for some of this may be tough, and I really want to be sure not to infringe on copyrights. Here are the topics and sources so far:

Weather: NOAA.

Sun/UV hazard: EPA.

Flu/Illness: Google Flu Trends, Benton County Health Alerts, and Benton County DHS.

Air Quality/Pollution: AIRNow. (This is not a forecast, so I use the day reported. Corvallis is not listed, but Eugene and others are, thus the inclusion of the word “area”.) Also using the Oregon Department of Air Qualities Air Quality Index.

Allergies: Is from the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology. www.aaaai.org (This is not a forecast, so I use the day reported. Corvallis is not listed, but Eugene and others are, thus the inclusion of the word “area”.)

I’ll be refining this list for sure.

Eat: Wednesday.  A post directing folks to a healthy meal at a local restaurant.  I will try to note if the people at the restaurant recommend the meal, or if it is just my take on their menu.  (I am not a nutritionist.)

I am using NutritionData for most of my nutrition facts.

Joy: Thursday.  Features an event that promotes good health, whether that means music, camaraderie, or simply fun.  If I haven’t heard of something directly I  currently scan the events over at Visit Corvallis.

Veg: Friday.  What is local, fresh, and good for you.  Apparently this changes quite rapidly so is a tad more complex than I first thought, but I’ll be relying on the good folks at First Alternative Co-op and Corvallis Farmer’s Market for some ideas.

Fit: Saturday.  A physical activity for the day.  Not too overwhelming, but something to get one out for a bit.  Calories burned are approximately for a 155lb person, from the Department of Human Services.  Distances from Google Earth.

Tip: If I come up with something that does not work into the above categories and times, I’ll post it as a tip.

I will also change the CorvallisHealth icon occasionally.  Free free to try to guess where it was taken!

Stay Tuned-