Health Literacy Conference on May 4 and 5

"Beyond the Written Word: Alternative Solutions to Low Health Literacy" in Irvine on May 4-5, 2006 is still open for registration

Senior Injury Prevention Conference on May 18

The 6th Annual Senior Injury Prevention Conference on May 18, 2006 in Irvine, California is open for registration.

Web Conference on May 4

PREVENT (Preventing Violence through Education, Networking and Technical Assistance) a component of the National Training Initiative for Injury and Violence will host a web conference on May 4, 2006 from 2:00 to 3:30 PM EDT on involving youth in violence prevention.

The web conference is free and will include presentations on projects working to prevent violence at the community level and describe the benefits of working with youth.

For more information about the conference and to register, please access the conference website or contact Jenny Cook at jenny_cook@unc.edu

Cell Phones and Traffic Injuries

Many years ago, during the late 1990s, Michael asked me if there were any data linking the use of cells phones to accidents caused by distracted drivers. The San Francisco Board of Supervisors was considering a regulation to ban the use of car and cell phones while driving. I did a PubMed search and came up with an article from the New England Journal of Medicine. It showed a four-fold increase in risk. The evidence got passed on, but nothing happened.

Meanwhile, this evidence has been replicated many times. A recent paper in the British Medical Journal shows the same thing.

Is this an issue in California?