A new study conducted by researchers in Denmark found that the longer infants were breastfed, the less likely they were to having epileptic seizures.  You can read more about this study at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/41463641/ns/health/

A new report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO), required by the 2008 Prenatally and Postnatally Diagnosed Conditions Awareness Act, examines the effectiveness of current health care and family support programs for the families of children with disabilities. In the report, GAO focused on Down syndrome because it is a medical condition that is associated with disabilities and occurs frequently enough to yield a sufficient population size for an analysis. GAO examined what is known about the extent to which children with Down syndrome receive medical care during early childhood and what resources families of children with Down syndrome receive through their health care providers, as well as what barriers families face to using these resources

The report is available at http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d1157.pdf.

In May 2010, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office on Disability awarded Mathematica Policy Research Inc. a $7 million contract to establish a Center of Excellence for Research on Disability Services.  This two-year project, funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009, is building a foundation for comparative effectiveness research (CER) on health care services, supports, and models of care for adults with disabilities.  Specifically, the Center is:

Identifying and reviewing evidence on which services and care models work best for whom
Developing and prioritizing critical research questions
Creating unique linked data sets to make it possible to research these questions
Establishing criteria and standards for assessing the effectiveness of services and models
Conducting original research that applies these standards

You learn more about the Center for Excellence for Disability Research at http://www.hhs.gov/disabilityresearch/index.html

The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) has released its recommendations for the prevention and control of influenza with vaccines.  Get the latest word on vaccinations here at MMWR-Immunization-Recommendations.

A bad diet may lead to bad health for many inner-city kids. And it may also lead to bad behavior.

That’s the conclusion of some public health experts who are advocating for vitamins and other nutritional supplements to curb youth violence and to increase learning. The controversial idea is getting a fresh hearing in Baltimore, where advocates for the disadvantaged are considering testing it on city kids.

If it’s proven that a tablet a day can tick up test scores and dial down violence, it could be a cheaper and easier means of improving a lot of young lives than costly and labor-intensive treatments, according to the Abell Foundation, which wants to determine whether a Baltimore study would be worthwhile.

You can read the full report here at Vitamins and Violence

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has launched a new Disabilities and Health website.   The site offers much information about disabilities, resources, and health data.  You can visit the wibsite at: http://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/disabilityandhealth/index.html

The Data Resource Center for Child and Adolescent Health now provides an online tool for researchers, policymakers, health officials, and others to collect and compare national, regional, and state-level measures of health status and data on a variety of topics relating to child health and well-being.  With access to data from the 2007 National Survey of Children’s Health, users may also create custom profiles of children’s health and system performance.  The profile in full is available at:
http://nschdata.org/indicators/Indicator_Report.aspx?rid=4&gid=0