Three Things Thursday highlights three things I am paying attention to as an epidemiologist each week. This week all public health eyes continue to focus on H5N1. As of May 22, about 350 farm workers are being monitored for illness after exposure to infected cows or infected raw cow's milk, according to the Morbidity & Mortality Weekly Report. We now have evidence that H5N1 can spread through raw (unpasteurized) milk.
While public health does its job preparing for what could be the next pandemic, the rest of us need to avoid raw milk. We should stay calm, too. Right now the risk of H5N1 to the general population continues to be low.
So…
For this week’s Three Things Thursday, we will turn our attention to the summer.
Hoping this post helps to educate and empower you
to be healthy and create healthy communities.
Our plans for having a healthy summer
include these healthy behaviors…
#1 —
Pending time outside is healthy — being outside helps us to be physically active, reduces our stress, and allows us to get (often some much-needed) vitamin D.
Our family spends a lot of time outside during the summer.
Usually, we are near/in a body of water — a pool, creek, river, lake, or ocean.
It is of the utmost importance that we protect ourselves from the sun’s rays when we are outside during the summer. Most skin cancers (which is the most common type of cancer in the United States) are caused by too much exposure to UV light from the sun.
When outside this summer, it is important to —
Seek out shade, especially during the hours of 10 am and 2 pm.
Wear sun-protective clothing. This includes sunglasses and a hat.
Please remember (from last week’s water safety post) that if you plan on swimming, you should not wear regular clothing (this includes a cotton t-shirt) in the water. If you are going to swim, you need a shirt that is nylon, spandex, or polyester.
Wear sunscreen.
Sunscreen filters ultraviolet light A & B (UVA & UVB) rays. An SPF (sun protective factor) of 15 or higher is recommended. Individuals should reapply sunscreen every couple of hours, especially if they are swimming.
And parents — you need to set an example for your kids. Wear a hat. Wear your sunglasses. Apply and reapply sunscreen. Seek out shade. Wear sun-protective clothing.
#2 —
Many of us will be picnicking throughout the summer. While eating outdoors with friends and family is a wonderful way to spend a summer afternoon or evening, it is of the utmost importance that we all prepare and store our picnic foods properly to prevent foodborne illnesses.
Food can become contaminated with a handful of viruses and bacteria, including Salmonella, Campylobacter, E. coli, listeria, and Hepatitis A when it is harvested, processed, prepared, or shared. Foodborne illnesses cause vomiting and diarrhea and symptoms usually last for a day or two (a rough, feeling awful day or two). Individuals who are immune compromised, the elderly, young children, and individuals who are pregnant are at greater risk for serious and potentially deadly complications from foodborne diseases.
Each year in the United States, more than 100,000 people go to the hospital and 3,000 people die because of foodborne illnesses.
Foodborne illnesses increase during the summer months.
The bacteria and viruses that cause foodborne illnesses are present throughout the environment in soil, air, water, and in the bodies of people and animals. These pathogens grow faster in the warm summer months. Most foodborne pathogens grow fastest in warmer temperatures. Those pathogens also need moisture to flourish, and summer weather is often hot and humid. Viruses and bacteria in food can increase in large numbers during the summer. When this happens, someone eating the food can get sick.
To prevent foodborne illnesses during the summer, please —
Wash your hands before food is prepared. Again, wash your hands before food is served. Again, wash your hands before you eat.
Wash your produce. This includes fruits like watermelon and cantaloupe. Did you know that the rind on the outside of the fruit is often a hotbed for viruses and bacteria? And if you do not wash, it is possible to slice through the rind. The virus and bacteria stick to the knife. As the knife slices through the fruit, it will contaminate all the slices with a virus or bacteria that can make one very sick.
Do not let food sit outside for more than 2 hours. And throw away your leftovers if they’ve sat outside for more than 2 hours.
Cook meat and seafood thoroughly. And to be clear — meat needs to be heated to a proper temperature to ensure it is safe to eat. Visual inspections of meat are not enough. It is time to buy a meat thermometer and use it!
Be careful of cross-contamination. Do not place cooked hamburgers on the same plate where the raw hamburgers sit. Do not cut fruit on a cutting board that was used for cutting chicken.
Mind the mayonnaise. Mayonnaise-based foods must be kept COLD. No questions. There is no safe amount of time to leave a mayonnaise-based dish sitting outside if it is not on ice.
Consider these picnic alternatives — chips instead of potato salad. Washed whole fruit instead of cut-up fruit salad. Cookies or brownies instead of cream or fruit pies. Non-mayonnaise-based potato salads.
#3 —
If you have been following along for a while, you may remember that two summers ago we encountered a rattlesnake on a hike — the experience of coming face-to-face with a rattlesnake forced me to think a lot about being safe in the woods. There is a lot of great information online about how to hike safely (check out this & this). Three things I’d like to highlight here are —
the need to pack plenty of water
the need to have a communications plan
the requirement that no one hikes alone.
In addition to snake safety and general hiking safety — we all need to be aware of ticks and take steps to prevent tickborne diseases, especially Lyme Disease.
According to CDC, there are an estimated 476,000 cases of Lyme Disease in the United States each year. Lyme Disease (named after the town of Lyme in Connecticut where the disease was first identified) is caused by the bacterium Borrelia burgdorferi.
Lyme disease is spread through the bite of an infected black-legged tick. Symptoms of Lyme disease include fever, headaches, joint pain, fatigue, and the classic bullseye rash. NOTE — the rash only shows up in 70-80% of Lyme cases.
If you find a tick on your body, remove it. And then it is best to call your physician and ask about getting treated for Lyme disease.
If you are out in the woods or areas with high grass, it is best to wear protective clothing. Think — pants, knee-high socks. Regardless of what you are wearing, when you get home, take a shower to remove any ticks that have not latched on yet. And then conduct a tick check of your whole body.
If you find a tick, remove it immediately. And reach out to your healthcare provider. If you live in the northeastern US, where Lyme disease is very prevalent, most providers will treat a tick bite as a probable case of Lyme disease. You’ll be treated with an antibiotic.
Do you need to send the tick to a lab to determine if it has Lyme disease? No — we do not diagnose Lyme disease through the tick. Lyme is diagnosed through a two-step blood test. Testing the tick for the disease allows us to know where the disease is circulating (and at what rate), but it cannot be used to diagnose an individual.
Here’s to having a safe and healthy summer!
Do you have any questions about how to plan for a safe and healthy summer? Please ask…
Please share this post with your friends and family.
By sharing accurate information — we can keep each other healthy, create healthy communities, and fight the epidemic of misinformation.
Epi(demiology) Matters is written by Dr. Becky Dawson, PhD MPH — an epidemiologist, teacher, mom, wife, and dedicated yogi. She is a tenured professor at Allegheny College, Research Director at a community hospital, and an exclusive contributor (all things health & medicine) at Erie News Now (NBC/CBS). Her goal is to create healthy communities for all. She writes Epi Matters — first & foremost because epidemiology does matter (to all of us) and she hopes that each post will help to educate and empower readers to be healthy and create healthy communities.
Be sure you and your friends and family are subscribed so you don’t miss a post —
Epi(demiology) Matters is free — because science, reports, news, updates, and alerts about health should NOT be behind a paywall. EVER. Everyone needs access to up-to-date health information in order to be healthy and create healthy communities for all.