Monthly Archive for August 2009
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August 26, 2009
links for 2009-08-26
Posted by: Staff on August 26, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
August 25, 2009
links for 2009-08-25
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Little tidbit for weight loss..
Posted by: Staff on August 25, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
August 19, 2009
links for 2009-08-19
Posted by: Staff on August 19, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
More on Health Care Reform from L.A. Times
Booster Shots, health snippets from the L.A. Times, has a quick focus on the bioethics of health care reform. The Association of Bioethics Program Directors position:
The current state of health care is unethical. It is neither just nor fair. There is no morally defensible reason why some Americans get excellent medical care at costs they can afford and other Americans lose their homes or go into bankruptcy attempting to secure treatment for a seriously ill loved one. The current proposals being debated in Congress all go a long way towards making health care in America more just. At the same time, there is nothing in the current proposals that threatens a patient’s right to choose, a critical feature of an ethically acceptable health care system.
Read and follow the links at the L.A. Times site, which includes a conversation with the Association of Bioethics Medical Directors President-elect, David Magnus, of Stanford University.
Posted by: Staff on August 19, 2009
Category:
August 18, 2009
links for 2009-08-18
Posted by: Staff on August 18, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
The Black Health Empowerment Project (BHEP) Coming to John Hay High School
Saturday, August 22, 2009
John Hay High School
2075 Stokes Blvd.
9 a.m. until 3:30 p.m.
FREE!
The BHEP is a national obesity awareness and health promotion tour designed to educate African American and Hispanic populations about obesity's relationship to chronic conditions such as diabetes, hypertension and heart disease, which disproportionately affect communities of color. The program encourages attendees to eat healthy, exercise regularly and embrace local health care resources as signified by its theme: Eat, Move and Test for Health! This program is a produced by the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation.
The special guest for this event will be U.S. Representative Marcia L. Fudge (OH-11).
This is a free, family event and it is open to the public. You can see more about the tour at www.bheptour.org.
Posted by: Staff on August 18, 2009
Category:
August 13, 2009
links for 2009-08-13
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A report, "Building a Comprehensive Child Vision Care System," found that children are being screened at low rates and those who are screened do not often receive the necessary follow-up and treatment they may require. Children without health insurance and those living in poverty are at the greatest risk.
"Children from low-income families lack the health care resources necessary to break the cycle of poverty," said David Rosenstein, DMS, MPH, Oregon Health & Science University professor emeritus. "This lack of vision care is handicapping our most vulnerable populations.
Posted by: Staff on August 13, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
The Outlook on Flu Vaccinations
Everyone knows that a new vaccine for H1N1, or swine flu, is in the process of being mass-produced for this upcoming flu season. However, can enough be made to vaccinate everyone in the target age brackets in time? There are global concerns about this issue. First, a global perspective described by Tadataka Yamada, M.D., as published in the August 12th edition of New England Journal of Medicine:
Only a few countries in the world have plants for manufacturing influenza vaccine, and three companies — GlaxoSmithKline, Sanofi-Aventis, and Novartis — account for most of the world's manufacturing capacity. The number of doses of vaccine against H1N1 influenza that could be produced with the existing capacity is very large, but the sobering truth is that even if production were switched over completely from seasonal influenza vaccine to pandemic influenza vaccine, there would not be nearly enough for everyone in the world. The size of the gap in potential supply depends greatly on the dose that is required, and it may be possible to reduce the necessary dose by as much as 75% with the use of an adjuvant. The challenging problem is that much, if not most, of the manufacturing capacity is already spoken for through purchasing contracts held by many of the world's wealthy countries.
The second issue is cost. Despite the enormous technological investment required to create a vaccine, the traditional cost of seasonal influenza vaccines even in wealthy countries is quite low. For the pandemic H1N1 influenza vaccine, the major manufacturers have indicated a willingness to offer tiered pricing, with affordable prices for poor countries. Going even further, Sanofi-Aventis has committed to donating 100 million doses of its vaccine to a stockpile for poor countries, and GlaxoSmithKline has committed to donating 50 million doses. Nevertheless, financial commitments from wealthy countries will be needed to help poorer countries purchase vaccines — cost should not be a barrier to access.
This is not a time to adhere to the "first come, first served" model of business, since we may be facing a health crisis of global proportions in which all people and countries are equally at risk. To ensure fairness, full adherence to a tiered pricing scheme in which the cost to the purchaser is proportionate to its ability to pay is essential.
So, what about the seasonal flu? That supply is also limited - at least in Ohio, if you do not have insurance to cover the cost of the shot. The H1N1 shot targets young adults and children, while the seasonal shot typically targets the immune-suppressed, chronically ill, older adult population, and children under the age of 5. Ohio Health Policy Review reports,
Because of state budget cuts, the Ohio Department of Health has announced plans to buy 45,000 flu shots for Ohioans without insurance or the ability to pay for the vaccination, down from the 190,000 vaccines that the state purchased last year (Source: “State cutback to reduce supply of free flu shots,” Lancaster Eagle Gazette, Aug. 11, 2009).
That's 145,000 less than initially intended.
Posted by: Staff on August 13, 2009
Category:
Register Now for the Fall 2009 Health Disparities Course
You can download the syllabus for our Health Disparities class at Case Western Reserve University here.
Posted by: Staff on August 13, 2009
Category: Health Disparities Class
August 12, 2009
links for 2009-08-12
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The findings underscore a central obstacle in tackling childhood obesity, Skelton and his colleagues note: The children who are most affected also generally have the greatest difficulty getting good healthcare.
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According to the report published in the journal BMC Public Health, over-indebted Germans are more likely to be overweight or obese than the population in general. The authors attribute this to the high cost of a healthy diet, lack of awareness of the availability of cheaper but nonetheless wholesome foods, but most particularly to the psychological and social stress experienced by over-indebted individuals. The result of this stress is that they tend to "comfort eat" and become less physically active.
Posted by: Staff on August 12, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
August 10, 2009
TENURE TRACK FACULTY POSITION, HEALTH DISPARITIES
The Center for Reducing Health Disparities at Case Western Reserve University is seeking an MD or PhD to join a productive group of scholars committed to understanding and addressing health disparities. The Center recently received a $6 million program project grant from the National Institutes of Health to study health disparities related to hypertension and kidney disease. The Center also leads the Community Engagement Core of Case Western's Clinical and Translational Science Award. Current areas of expertise include quality improvement, community-based participatory research, cancer prevention, linguistic barriers, organ donation, end of life care, and medical-legal interventions. More information is available at www.ReduceDisparity.org.
The successful candidate will collaborate with other faculty, community organizations, and government agencies to develop and test interventions to reduce health disparities. MD's will also have a clinical appointment at the MetroHealth System Campus of Case Western Reserve University. Clinical departments that are especially strong at MetroHealth include internal medicine, pediatrics, emergency and trauma care, obstetrics, cancer, and physical medicine and rehabilitation. Both MD's and PhD's will have opportunities for teaching.
Case Western Reserve University, ranked among the top 15 nationally in NIH funding, has renowned faculty in health services research, epidemiology, biostatistics, health economics, biomedical ethics, medical anthropology, and sociology. There is a growing awareness of the importance of addressing health disparities not only among Cleveland's health care providers but also among its political and business leaders. Cleveland has been rated as one of the most livable cities in the United States because of its world-class cultural institutions, ample recreational opportunities, and affordable housing.
Recruited faculty will be expected to establish an externally funded research program. Excellent salary and start-up packages are available with academic rank commensurate with experience.
Applications from women and individuals with diverse racial, ethnic, and cultural backgrounds are encouraged. Case Western Reserve University and the MetroHealth System are equal opportunity and affirmative action employers. Please send C.V., list of references, a recent paper, and description of research interests to Cydney Johnson, MPA, Coordinator, Center for Reducing Health Disparities, Case Western Reserve University, MetroHealth Medical Center, 2500 MetroHealth Drive, Cleveland, Ohio 44109; E mail cjohnson3@metrohealth.org.
Posted by: Staff on August 10, 2009
Category: Health Disparities; case western; cwru; employment; faculty; jobs; tenure
August 06, 2009
links for 2009-08-06
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"Cancer is a disease that is cheaper to prevent than treat," says Michele Forman, Ph.D., a professor in M. D. Anderson's Department of Epidemiology. "If we eat healthier meals and increase daily exercise, we could avoid about one-third or 186,000 cancer deaths this year."
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"In young women ages 15-29, the torso is the most common location for developing melanoma, which may be due to high risk tanning behavior," according to Francesco Fusco, MD, assistant clinical professor of dermatology at Mt Sinai School of Medicine NYC and an educational spokesperson for the Skin Cancer Foundation."
Posted by: Staff on August 06, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
Can Moving to the United States Make You Sick?
The term "Hispanic" covers many regions, dialects, and cultures of Spanish-speaking people. Now there is evidence that each subgroup also has different cancer risks. Paulo S. Pinheiro, M.D., Ph.D., M.Sc., researcher in the Department of Epidemiology at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine has completed a study and found that,
The results indicated that these population groups showed different patterns of cancer once they moved to the United States; Mexicans had the lowest rates of cancer overall and Puerto Ricans had the highest rates of cancer. Cubans' risk of cancer most closely resembles that of non-Hispanic whites. Similar to the U.S. non-Hispanic white population, Cubans and Puerto Ricans seemed to acquire higher risk for diet-related cancers relatively quickly.
For all cancers combined, risk for most cancers was higher (at least 40 percent) among Hispanics living in the United States compared with those who live in their countries of origin.
Lifestyle changes that occur when immigrating to the United States are attributed to the increased cancer risks. The increased incidence of chronic illnesses in general has been documented in other information sources, including the Becoming American episode of Unnatural Causes series that has been shown on PBS, and will be re-run in October in some regions.
To read Dr. Pinheiro's article, check Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research.
Posted by: Staff on August 06, 2009
Category:
August 05, 2009
links for 2009-08-05
Posted by: Staff on August 05, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
Stress Links to Heart Disease
In a recent article in Obesity, the journal for The Obesity Society, Dr. Carol A. Shively discusses her research, the first project that studies links between stress, visceral obesity and coronary artery atherosclerosis(CAA) at the same time. Her findings point to what can be a connection between societal stresses and heart disease.
Shively and colleagues found compared to monkeys whose ratio of adbominal fat to subcutaneous fat was low, the monkeys whose ratio was high were also the subordinate ones, who were socially isolated, received more aggresssion and less grooming, had impaired ovarian function, and had more biomarkers of stress (desensitized to circulating glucocorticoids). They also had higher heart rates late in the day and more plaque in their blood vessels (CAA).
To read more, visit Medical News Today or the article in Obesity.
Posted by: Staff on August 05, 2009
Category:
August 04, 2009
Heart Failure Therapy for Women Under-researched
Harlan Spector directs attention to the fact that heart failure therapies in women are largely under-researched. He references a recent article from the Journal of the American College of Cardiology written by Cleveland Clinic doctor Eileen Hsich, who
cites evidence that some treatments may not benefit women the same way they do men. In particular, Hsich says implanted defibrillators and ACE inhibitors, medications that slow the progress of heart failure, appear less effective.
To read Harlan Spector's article on the Plain Dealer website, click here. For the abstract in Journal of the American College of Cardiology, click here.
Posted by: Staff on August 04, 2009
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