US Census

Link for Census 2010 Toolkits:

http://2010.census.gov/partners/toolkits/

FDA publications

Here is a link to the FDA's site for publications pertaining to Women's health issues in multiple foreign languages.

http://www.fda.gov/ForConsumers/ByAudience/ForWomen/FreePublications/ucm116738.htm

CIN Meeting

The Community Involvement Network meeting I attended this past week provided some interesting information regarding immigration and Delaware County.

Statistics first:

Languages other than English Spoken in Delaware County
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey 2006-2008

• 89.5% (464,483) of Delaware County residents speak only English and
• 10.5% (54,359) report that they speak a language other than English as their primary language at home.

The 6 languages (other than English) most frequently spoken are

• Spanish/Spanish Creole,
• Chinese,
• Italian,
• African languages (a consolidated category of many languages),
• French (including Patois and Cajun) and Greek.

Among Delaware County residents who are speakers of other languages, 34.5% (18,766) report that they speak English “less than very well”. The top 6 languages spoken by those reporting limited English, are

• Spanish/Spanish Creole,
• Chinese,
• Korean,
• Vietnamese,
• Italian and
• Greek.
  

Language (other than English) spoken as primary language at home
% of all speakers of other languages (n=54,359)/% of all speakers of other languages who say they speak English less than very well (n=54,359)

• Spanish or Spanish Creole - 18.7/7.1
• Chinese - 9.6/4.4
• Italian - 7.5/2.1
• African languages (Census category grouping many languages) - 5.7/1.1
• French (incl. Patois, Cajun) - 5.6/1.2
• Greek - 5.5/1.9
• Korean - 5.0/2.8
• Vietnamese - 4.9/2.6
• French Creole - 3.9/1.1
• Other Indic languages - 3.4/1.4

I have handouts on other demographics but can't seem to get them posted here. I'll keep trying.

Welcoming Center for New Pennsylvanians:

This agency in Philadelphia does a lot of outreach work into both Delaware and Montgomery Counties. Their main goal is economic development - helping authorized workers find jobs, or start small businesses, and to help businesses find, hire and maintain employees among authorized immigrants.

They also have publications to help people who were professionals at "home" enter those professions in the states. Their website seems to be a wealth of information. Spend some time looking it through it if you haven't done so before.

www.welcomingcenter.org

Medicare's 2010 drugs/health plan options

ENHANCED ONLINE TOOLS MAKE COMPARING MEDICARE’S 2010 PRESCRIPTION DRUG AND HEALTH PLAN OPTIONS EASIER

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) today announced that people with Medicare and family members can begin to review their 2010 coverage options through Medicare’s improved online tools. Beneficiaries will find several new enhancements on the Medicare Health Options Compare and Prescription Drug Plan Finder located at www.medicare.gov.

People without Web access can get the same information provided by the online plan comparison tools by calling 1-800 MEDICARE (1-800-633-4227) or by contacting their local State Health Insurance Assistance Program office (http://www.medicare.gov/Contacts/staticpages/ships.aspx) or other health advocacy agencies for free personalized counseling. Medicare’s customer service is available 24-hours a day and 7 days a week. English and Spanish-language customer service representatives are available. Translation services are available in additional languages and a TDD service is offered for the hearing impaired.

A 2010 Medicare & You handbook, also available on www.Medicare.gov, will be mailed to the homes of all eligible beneficiaries this month. This publication provides all plan option information that is available using the Web tools.

Internet Public Library's 15 Things - Online Technologies

Here are the first five of the IPL's new list of 15 favorite technologies (blogs, microblogging, social networking, wikis, and virtual worlds) with background information, best practices, related articles, IPL applications, and exercises. This looks like a nicely organized collection of information on these topics.

http://ipl.ci.fsu.edu/community/wiki/index.php/IPL_15_Things

Vaccine Info Sheets

Here is a link for vaccine info from the government in multiple languages;

http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/pubs/vis/vis-facts.htm

Spanish language consumers guides/column

Here's a link for Spanish language consumer guides for health issues such as depression, arthritis, etc and the drugs used for these illnesses from AHRQ.

Select to access the guides. Print copies are available by sending an e-mail to ahrqpubs@ahrq.hhs.gov.

Also here is link for AHRQ's monthly health advice column & website in spanish;
AHRQ announced Consejos de Salud Para Tí, (Health Advice for You),

The column is part of AHRQ’s Información en Español Web site