Students studying public health at colleges and universities throughout New York can apply for internships in environmental health with the state.

The state Department of Health will select nine students for two-month internships this summer. The interns wil choose rotations dealing with infectious diseases, genetics, public health preparedness, and environmental monitoring.

The goal of the program is to introduce undergraduate students to the public health application of science and to recruit a new generation of public health employees.

Interns will work in environmental health at the state and local health departments, shadowing public health sanitarians, engineers and research scientists as they inspect restaurants, camps and swimming pools, regulate the water supply and conduct research.

Information on how to apply is available on the State Health Department’s website at http://www.nyhealth.gov/prevention/public_health_works/

President Barack Obama promised transparency in the way that taxpayer money will be spent in the massive new federal stimulus. Here’s an interesting Web Site developed by the “U.S. Department of Health and Human Services”:http://www.hhs.gov/recovery/index.html that provides a state-by-state breakdown of how the recovery money is being spent on health-related programs.

The site, tells us, for example, that President Obama released  $155 million in Recovery Act grant funds to support 126 Community Health Centers across the country. The site provides a map, if you click on N.Y., you will see that the state has gotten more than $7 million of those funds for health centers that will serve an estimated 45,230 people and create 335 jobs.

You can also find the location and other information about the nearest community health center. There is also information on how to apply for jobs, grants and contract.

The HHS site looks like a work in progress, so it’s worth stopping by every now and then to see what’s new.

Three doctors and two nutritionists from the Scarsdale Medical Group recently opened a center specifically designed to treat and educate people with all forms of diabetes and other disorders of the endocrine system.

The center will offer private nutrition counseling, and educational sessions on how to use diabetes management technology like glucose meters, insulin pens, insulin pumps and continuous glucose monitoring systems.

Diabetes affects the body’s ability to use blood sugar for energy. The main types include type 1 diabetes, type 2 diabetes, and gestational diabetes. Type 2 diabetes, which has been linked to obesity, is on the rise in both adults and children.

The new Diabetes and Endocrinology Center of the Scarsdale Medical Group is located at 550 Mamaroneck Avenue in Harrison. The phone number is 914-723-8100.

As part of a push to improve the quality of care people get, the state’s Medicaid program will now only pay for breast cancer surgery at hospitals that perform at least 30 similar cases each year. The new policy went into effect the first of this month.

State Health Commissioner Richard F. Daines said that the new policy is part of an effort to make sure that taxpayers only pay for high quality care.

Daines said that studies have shown an association between higher breast cancer surgery volume and higher rates of five-year survival.

A total of 52 low-volume hospital will be affected by the change, according to the “Department of Health”:http://www.health.state.ny.us/press/releases/2009/2009-03-03_medicaid_contracting_breast_cancer_surgery.htm.

Most hospitals in Westchester, Rockland and Putnam fall into the high-volume category and will still be eligible for funding. They include:

Westchester: Community Hosp / Dobbs Ferry, Hudson Valley Hospital Center, Lawrence Hospital, Northern Westchester Hospital, Phelps Memorial Hospital, Sound Shore Medical Center, St.  Johns Riverside Hospital, St Joseph’s Hospital Yonkers, Westchester Medical Center and White Plains Hospital.

Rockland: Good Samaritan Hospital and Nyack Hospital.

Putnam: Putnam Hospital.

If you encounter a story on some blog or Web site about a possible link between the drinking game Beer Pong and herpes simplex 1, the virus that causes cold sores, disregard. The story is a fake, says the “CDC”:http://www.cdc.gov/, which never issued such a warning.

A good lesson in separating fact from fiction in the blogosphere.

People in the Northeast are much less likely to die in car crashes than those in the South, according to a new study by the Centers for Disease Control. The data also shows that there are big difference in the death rate between men and women, with 21.7 deaths per 100,000 for men and 9.4 per 100,000 for women.

Among states, the average annual death rate ranged from 7.9 per 100,000 population in Massachusetts to 31.9 in Mississippi. The New York rate was 8.4 per 100,000.
Other differences: the rate for American Indians/Alaska Natives was 27.2,  nearly twice the rate for whites, which was 15.7 and blacks, which was 15.2.
The death rates for people aged 15-24 years, was 26.8,  74 percent higher than the average annual rate overall, which was 15.4.
Take a look at the “CDC study”:http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5807a1.htm.