Relay For Life on Second Life

OK - This is fun. The American Cancer Society is hosting a Relay for Life in Second Life (SL). I found this information at the discussion boards of the SL Healthy Wiki. It's a wetpaint wiki designed to gather "information about consumer health locations and groups in Second Life, with general health education resources as well."

When I look to see who is behind this wonderful and well-organized resource, I am pleased - and not surprised to see that Namro Orman (one of the masterminds of Healthinfo Island on Second Life) is involved. Namro aka Guus van den Brekel designed the excellent search widget on this page.

As of today SL Healthy has 77 members and it looks like a great place to jump in and add your expertise if you are in Second Life and interested in health information. Other SL and health resources include:
Health and Medicine in Second Life Blog
Healthinfo Island Blog
Healthinfo Island BlogHUD

The Wellness Community

I just perused another great site. This one creates a community for cancer patients and their caregivers. It's called the Wellness Community. I've never heard of them before. This is the scoop from their website: "Founded in 1982, The Wellness Community is an international non-profit organization dedicated to providing free support, education and hope to people with cancer and their loved ones." They have both on-line and physical support groups with professional staff.

They have public discussion boards - free and easy to join - that are very similar to most social networking discussion boards. They also have on-line support groups that meet via phone and chat for 90 minutes/week. Trained facilitators lead these groups of 8-10 people. Other great features include a relaxation meditation that you can download, cooking and nutrition information, and a spanish version of the site.

Navigation on the site is fairly intuitive. The only warning I have is that the social media and on-line support "join" button is only available from the home page. I'm sure they will re-design the site so that if you look at the "about" page you will be able to jump back to the on-line community and join but for now, don't panic, just click on the logo in the upper left corner of the page. That takes you home where you can sign in.

DailyStrength

An outstanding idea with the execution to match - DailyStrength.org is a social networking site designed to support people with any health issue you can think of. It's free and anonymous.

Sign up is simple and the site is well designed. They have support groups already started for just about any disease or condition you can think of from allergies to women's health. If you don't find what you are looking for, however, you have two options. You can suggest a new support group or you can start a member group and invite others to it.

I just signed up today. I'll post more after I've used it a couple times.

Photoshare

Photoshare is an excellent photo sharing site for anyone in public health or health education. They have over 15,000 photographs in categories from "abortion" to "youth programs". There is no fee for non-commercial use. If you would like to add to their collection of documentary style photos, they will make sure you get the photo credit. There is also the Photoshare Blog which has acticles about interesting public health projects, their photo contest and points to interesting articles.

I found this via a non-web 2.0 source called AVERT.org which is the most comprehensive website on AIDS/HIV that I've ever seen.

Power to the People

I think I am now addicted to Rollyo. That's OK though, because I just created a customized search on alternative health. It's called Health and Wellness. I'll just type in "addiction" and I have all of the information I need to safely and effectively overcome my new life challenge.

These Rollyo searches are easy to edit too. If you know of a website I missed that should be included in this list, send me a note.