Public Health ACTion (PHACT) 2013 Campaign mobilizes support

The 2013 Public Health Action (PHACT) Campaign is well underway. Check out the Public Health ACTion (PHACT) Campaign web site maintained by the American Public Health Association (APHA). It provides 'open' data and information on public health funding impacts on communities in every state in the U.S.   Click on your state to find out where it ranks on public health funding and activities.

APHA is mobilizing its members, affiliates and other advocates to educate their representatives in the U.S. Congress on important public health issues that help to build and maintain healthy communities. APHA also strives to protect critical funding for public health agencies

Hit by recession and tight budgets, spending on public health by federal, state and local governments have fallen in recent years. However, the private sector may be picking up the slack as the 'Open Data' movement picks up steam.

In response to the recent Presidential Executive Order entitled "Making Open and Machine Readable the New Default for Government Information", thousands of government data resources related to such fields as health and medicine, education, energy, public safety, global development, and finance have already been posted in machine-readable form for free public use on Data.Gov. 

Entrepreneurs and innovators in both the public and private sector are now producing a vast range of useful new products and businesses using these public information resources, creating many good jobs in the process. The following are links to the web sites of just a few of the many collaborative, 'open' public health software products, projects, services, or health information resources worth checking out.

For example, some of the best Consumer Health Information Resources that have been collected and posted in the Open Health News (OHN) knowledgebase can be found at -
http://www.openhealthnews.com/resources/health-it-category/consumer-health-information

Some of the best Public Health Resources collected and posted on Open Health News (OHN) can be found at - http://www.openhealthnews.com/resources/health-it-category/public-health

Finally, some of the best Health Information Portals collected and posted on Open Health News (OHN) can be found at - http://www.openhealthnews.com/resources/health-it-category/information-portal

Selected Links to U.S. & Global Public Health Resources

* To find out more about free and open source software, open data hubs, tool kits, organizations, videos, etc. readers might also want to visit the COSI 'Open' Health web site.