So, what are the symptoms? We asked John Finnegan, dean of the University of Minnesota School of Public Health.

He provides background on H1N1, explains the symptoms, who is most at risk and explains when someone should seek medical care.

Listen to Finnegan on Public Health Scene (4:58)

In this installment of Public Health Scene, Jamie Stang, a nutrition expert and assistant professor at the University of Minnesota, discusses the report and explains why Minnesota might be seeing lower rates.

She says several factors contribute to low obesity rates among Minnesota children. These include higher education levels, ethnic background, and socio-economic standards.

But, perhaps most important, Stang says: Minnesota kids are active.

Listen to Stang on Public Health Scene (5:45)

It's called the AARP Blue Zones Vitality Project.

Leslie Lytle, a University of Minnesota epidemiology professor, is co-director of the project.

She says that instead of focusing on diet and exercise, the project encourages the best practices of the world's longest-lived populations with strategies such as making it easier to get around on and encouraging the development of social networks.

Listen to Lytle on Public Health Scene

What does this mean? And what should you know about the swine flu? We talked with Nick Kelley, a research assistant with the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota.

For starters, there's a lot that public health experts don't know yet, he says. But he recommends that people stay home if they are sick and says that families should develop their own personal and family emergency plan.

Listen to Kelley on Public Health Scene (4 min. 53 sec)

Resources
World Health Organization
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy, University of Minnesota
Minnesota Department of Health

She also discovered increases in the amount of fast food the adolescents ate as they moved from middle school to high school, and in male adolescents as they moved from high school into young adulthood.

Perhaps the most surprising finding is that male high school athletes eat more fast food.

Using data from Project EAT, a study of more than 2,500 Twin Cities adolescents, Bauer found that 27 percent of high school girls reported eating fast food more than three times per week in 2004, compared with only 19 percent in 1999.

Listen to Bauer on this installment of Public Health Scene

“Our study clearly shows that binge drinking is a significant public health problem in the military, which is dangerous to both the drinker and to those around them,� said Mandy Stahre, M.P.H., a doctoral candidate in alcohol epidemiology and first author of the study.  “It also underscores the importance of implementing effective strategies to prevent underage and binge drinking, such as maintaining and enforcing the age 21 minimum legal drinking age and increasing alcohol excise taxes.�

Listen to more from Stahre on Public Health Scene

Go to the article in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine

Pete Raynor, an environmental health scientist at the University of Minnesota, explains and advises on how to find out if your home has radon.

Listen to Raynor on Public Health Scene

The best prevention is to get a flu shot, says Ed Ehilinger, director and chief health officer at the University of Minnesota’s Boynton Health Service. In this segment of Public Health Scene, he explains who is most at risk.

In addition, Ehlinger discusses the results a recent studh he co-authored, which found students who receive flu shots not only miss fewer classes but also do better on tests and coursework.

Listen to Ehlinger

Roger Feldman, a health policy expert at the University of Minnesota, has used a micro-simulation model to evaluate each plan.

• Listen to Feldman on Public Health Scene (8:01)

• Read a related story, featuring Feldman, in InTheNews

Last month, more than 100 college presidents signed a petition calling for a debate on whether the minimum legal drinking age should be lowered from 21 to 18.

That's a bad idea, says Traci Toomey (pictured), a University of Minnesota researcher. She says in a 2002 analysis of high-quality studies on the age-21 drinking law's effects, the majority of studies found that the higher drinking age resulted in lower rates of traffic crashes, none found the opposite.

�It is the most well-studied alcohol control policy we have in this country,� says Toomey, an associate professor in the School of Public Health.

Listen to Toomey discuss this issue

More about lowering the drinkin age from theday.com

Craig Hedberg, a University of Minnesota expert in food-borne disease, provides some perspective on this outbreak and offers advice to consumers. For example, he says that in general people are eating more fresh fruit and vegetables, which is good, but also puts us more at risk of acquiring a food-borne disease.

“Our message is that we're working with industry, we're working with growers to try to minimize the opportunities for contamination and to identify which strategies may be in place to minimize contamination after it occurs,” Hedberg said.

He also states that irradiation offers promise to prevent future outbreaks.

Listen to Hedberg discuss this issue

Project Eating Among Teens (EAT) researchers found that overweight teens, especially girls, who were encouraged by their parents to diet for weight control were more likely to remain overweight five years later, compared with their peers whose parents did not encourage dieting.

“Our findings suggest that less emphasis should be placed on informing parents that their children are overweight, and more emphasis should be placed on providing parents with the information, tools, and support to help their children make healthier eating and physical activity choices," said Neumark-Sztainer.

Listen to Neumark-Sztainer discuss the findings of her study (4:25)

More about the Project Eat Study

More about the study in the Star Tribune.