Speak up to your pharmacist
Pharmacists are becoming more active players on the patient health care team, dispensing not just pills but essential information about drugs. As a result, researchers like Joseph Wiederholt are studying pharmacist-patient communication, known to ensure better health by helping patients manage their medication schedules. The UW School of Pharmacy associate professor has found that pharmacists and the environment in which they work are most important for communication. "Pharmacists must recognize their role as counselors as well as patients' role as informa-tion seekers," he says. Pharmacies, he adds, should be designed to encourage direct pharmacist-patient contact, which occurs most often at the moment prescriptions are handed over.

No smoking, please
Despite overwhelming evidence that cigarettes shorten life, the age at which people start smoking continues to drop. To help kids withstand pressure to light up, Michael Pfau, professor of journalism and mass communication, has devised and successfully tested a preventive communication approach called "inoculation." The strategy presents adolescents with ways to refute pro-smoking arguments: "Smoking makes your breath stink," for example, or "It costs a lot of money."

Early help for late talkers
Hearing babies speak their first recognizable word is enough to make most parents ecstatic. But others may fret over what is normal language development - especially if their child is a "late talker." Collecting data on more than 800 children, UW psychologist Virginia Marchman has found perfectly normal variation in how much and how soon children use words. Funded by the UW Waisman Center and the National Institutes of Health, her research is helping to explain the difference between normal delays and early signs of trouble, giving parents peace of mind in knowing that many late talkers will be just fine. Some children are late talkers because they process language differently, she says, but for others it may relate to a cognitive problem or hearing loss. The research could produce a better checklist to help pediatricians recognize language problems earlier - ideally at 18 months. When delays are caught at that age, most children catch up with proper intervention.