It's Recreational Water Illness and Injury Prevention Week 2013!

It's Recreational Water Illness and Injury Prevention Week 2013!

It's Recreational Water Illness and Injury Prevention Week 2013!

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) sent this bulletin at 05/20/2013 02:35 PM EDT

May 20, 2013 

CDC’s Healthy Swimming Program is pleased to announce the start of the 9^th annual Recreational Water Illness and Injury Prevention Week. 

Each year, Recreational Water Illness and Injury (RWII) Prevention Week focuses on simple steps swimmers and pool operators can take to help ensure a healthy and safe swimming experience for everyone. This year’s theme is “How We Swimmers Contaminate Pools,” focusing on the role of good swimmer hygiene in preventing illness. We wish all of you a healthy and safe summer swim season!

New materials

• Our newly reorganized Healthy Swimming website, with web content syndication available for our most popular pages
• An infographic about interactive fountains, splash parks, and spray pads
• FREE laminated posters about safe use and storage of pool chemicals (in English and Spanish)
• The RWII Prevention Week Feature on the CDC homepage
• The newly published article in CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) on the feces and other contaminants swimmers bring into pools

Coming soon!

• Redesigned fact sheets on recreational water illnesses
• New Spanish Healthy Swimming posters
• A social media library
• A Healthy Swimming mobile app to get you to critical public materials in a snap!

We also have a RWII Prevention Week-themed button, currently up on our homepage, and banner (above) that partners can put on their own websites or emails to promote the observance. Please email healthywater@cdc.gov if you are interested in using either of these, and we will send you the files.

Join CDC for a #safeswim Twitter chat, May 22

Join CDC experts Michele Hlavsa and Michael Beach to talk about how to help keep yourself, your family, and your friends healthy and safe this summer swim season and beyond.

We all share the water we play and swim in, but there are some things we don’t want to share with other swimmers—germs. Yuck! Learn about the germs that we swimmers can introduce into the places we swim, how these germs could make you and others sick, and how all of us can take a few easy and effective steps to keep the germs out of the water.

We’ll discuss:

• How we benefit from swimming. Did you know swimming can improve your health—and your mood?
• What’s in the water. Did you know chlorine and other disinfectants don’t kill germs instantly?
• Where we swim. Did you know germs could be lurking anywhere you swim or play in the water—even in the pool down the street?
• Popular topics: We’ll answer your questions on topics like swim diapers and breastfeeding in pools.
• How to stay healthy and safe. Healthy and safe swimming is easy with CDC’s simple tips!
• And more!

Want to join the conversation? Follow @CDC_NCEZID on Twitter and use the hashtag #swimsafe during the chat to participate.

Wait—what’s a Twitter chat? Twitter chats are scheduled gatherings of people on Twitter to discuss anything that interests them, using a #hashtag to keep track of the conversation. There are chats for everything from blogging on art to agriculture to, yes, health! Twitter chats offer participants a great way to network and share knowledge. It’s similar to a chat room in that it’s a topic-driven conversation happening in real time; it just happens to take place on Twitter.

Not using Twitter? No problem. Just visit https://twitter.com/CDC_NCEZID and click “Sign Up” to get started.

 

 Save the Date: The World’s Largest Swimming Lesson, June 18

The World's Largest Swimming Lesson aims to draw attention to the importance of teaching children how to swim as a key component in drowning prevention. On June 18, pools, waterparks, and other aquatic facilities around the globe will host local swimming lessons simultaneously in an attempt to break the Guinness World Record. Get involved today!

Be the first to know CDC’s latest recommendations for aquatic venues!

Join CDC and partners for the release of the first edition of the Model Aquatic Health Code for final public comment. The event will take place at the National Environmental Health Aquatic Symposium, a special preconference at this year’s National Environmental Health Association (NEHA) Annual Educational Conference & Exhibition.

The preconference will be held Monday, July 8th from 1-5 p.m.
Register for NEHA preconference on the MAHC.

Note: The symposium is free with any one-day or full conference registration. After logging in and registering for the conference, you will have the option to add this symposium and other preconference workshops. Questions? Visit http://neha2013aec.org/ to learn more about the conference and preconference.