Health & Healthcare

This issue features an important announcement from the AATA regarding recent world events, as well as an article by art therapists Abbien Crowley Ciucci and Hope Heffner, who describe the use of altered books with caregivers at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. Furthermore, the AATA has announced a new campaign through Network For Good that looks to raise funds to send up to 10 new professional art therapists to next year's annual conference. Featured AATA member Margaret Prescott, President of the Evergreen Art Therapy Association (EATA), discusses how membership has influenced her life and describes how her passion for art and helping others led her to art therapy.

We’re bombarded with endless to-do lists at every turn—at home, on the job and especially in regard to our health. Eat plenty of kale, broccoli, quinoa and yogurt. Exercise 30 minutes a day. Get up and walk around every hour. Get plenty of sleep. Sometimes it can seem overwhelming. But there are some simple ways that can help you stay energized, nutritionally balanced and reduce your likelihood of developing diabetes.

While working in rural northern Thailand in 2013, Erin Zaikis met children who didn’t know what soap was, so she brought them some, trying to conduct an impromptu hand-washing workshop. She was stunned to see the children smacking their faces with the bars of soap, unsure of what to do with it. Soap is something that so many of us take for granted; however, there are many people in the world who can’t afford it and don’t understand the benefits of hand washing.

UnitedHealthcare is providing $74,000 to help renovate the City of San Diego Park and Recreation Department’s new Park De La Cruz Community Center and to create therapy programs for veterans.

Sanofi and the Institut Pasteur have attributed today the Sanofi - Institut Pasteur Awards for the fourth year in a row. Four major researchers with international recognition have been rewarded for their works in two major fields for global health: tropical and neglected diseases and immunology.

Astellas USA Foundation and Starlight Children’s Foundation announced today the completion of two new, state-of-the-art healing environments that will support the health and wellness of thousands of pediatric patients and their families at The Children’s Hospital at OU Medical Center in Oklahoma City and Advocate Children’s Hospital – Park Ridge in the Chicago-area.

Obesity and diabetes rates in the United States have hit an all-time high. More than two in three American adults are considered overweight today, according to the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, a health research center. Children are no better off, reporting skyrocketing increases in new Type-2 diabetes cases; a condition previously unheard of in people under 30.

The Coca-Cola Africa Foundation and its partners are working with local African governments, NGOs, water service providers and communities to build infrastructure that supplies clean drinking water and sanitation facilities across Africa. These efforts will help to minimize the spread of disease and empower local communities with educational opportunities and economic prosperity.

Feeding America, the nation’s leading hunger-relief organization, salutes The Walt Disney Company for its $1.5 million donation, the vast majority of which will provide grants to 60 food banks across the nation to expand their local fresh produce sourcing and distribution programs. The donation will be announced on ABC’s “The Chew” today at 1:00 p.m. ET/12:00 p.m. CT/PT.