Public Health News and Research

RSS

State film subsidy programs undermine longstanding tobacco control efforts

State governments, including California as well as others in Canada and the United Kingdom, pour hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars into major motion pictures that depict smoking -- leading to thousands of new teen smokers every year, a University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) researcher has found.

24 Aug 2011

First Edition: August 24, 2011

In today's headlines, Medicare tries bundled payments and HHS signals that it may give states a second chance to avoid a federally-run health insurance exchange.

24 Aug 2011

New method can identify environmental safety of chemicals

Baylor University environmental researchers have proposed in a new study a different approach to predict the environmental safety of chemicals by using data from other similar chemicals.

24 Aug 2011

Measles exposure in Philadelphia and Lancaster counties

The Pennsylvania Department of Health and the Philadelphia Department of Public Health are advising the public of exposure to a case of measles in Lancaster and Philadelphia counties.

24 Aug 2011

Creighton University receives NIH grant to address diabetes in adult American Indians

Creighton University School of Nursing has received a $207,000, two-year grant from the National Institutes of Health to address the growing problem of type 2 diabetes mellitus in adult American Indians.

24 Aug 2011

First international conference on developmental, translational and clinical pharmacogenomics

The first international conference hosted by the University of South Florida College of Pharmacy will focus on ways to improve health care by customizing drug prescribing and treatment based on an individual's genetic makeup.

24 Aug 2011

Smokers more likely to report problems with persistent musculoskeletal pain

Smokers are much more likely to report problems with persistent musculoskeletal pain than non-smokers, according to a new study reported in the Journal of Pain, published by the American Pain Society.

24 Aug 2011

DTU, TGen researchers pinpoint source of cholera outbreak in Haiti

Employing technology that reads the entire DNA code, researchers led by the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen) and the Technical University of Denmark (DTU) have pinpointed the source of a cholera outbreak in Haiti that killed more than 6,000 people and sickened 300,000.

24 Aug 2011

AMIA president & CEO presents HIT's impact on healthcare disparities

The Martin Luther King, Jr. Health Equity Summit, convened by the Institute for the Advancement of Multicultural and Minority Medicine (IAMMM), opens today as the long-awaited Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial is unveiled and opens to the public on the National Mall.

24 Aug 2011

Faster angioplasty for most heart attack victims: Study

According to a new study more than 90% of patients who have a heart attack and need an emergency treatment like angioplasty now have it within the recommended 90 minutes after they get to the hospital.

23 Aug 2011

Fewer children falling from windows thanks to safety measures

According to a new study in the journal Pediatrics, pediatric injury rates in the United States where children fall off from windows has steadily decreased during a 19-year period, but these declines could be more substantial if comprehensive prevention programs similar to those launched in New York City and Boston were adopted nationwide.

23 Aug 2011

High-salt diets with low physical activity can impact brain health in older adults

Older adults who lead sedentary lifestyles and consume a lot of sodium in their diet may be putting themselves at risk for more than just heart disease.

23 Aug 2011

Fla., CMS discuss Medicaid managed care options; Calif. may shrink healthy families enrollment

A Florida proposal to shift nearly all of its 3 million Medicaid patients into managed care is emerging as a national test case for how lenient CMS will be as cash-strapped states look for savings in their most expensive health program. CMS and Florida officials met this week to address concerns about a five-county managed care pilot program that Florida is seeking to expand statewide.

23 Aug 2011

Prenatal smoking affects early neurological development in babies

In one of the largest studies of its kind to date, researchers have found that babies born to mothers who smoke while pregnant face substantial delays in early neurological development, and the effects may be stronger than researchers had previously thought.

23 Aug 2011

HHS HRSA awards $2.6 million in grants to CWRU dental school

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) is supporting pre- and post-doctoral training programs in dental public health at Case Western Reserve University in an effort to combat disparities in oral health.

23 Aug 2011

New research reveals stubbornly low public awareness of bowel cancer

BRITONS have very low awareness of the signs and symptoms of bowel cancer - the third most common cancer in the UK and second largest cause of cancer deaths each year, new research shows.

23 Aug 2011

Children with asthma more likely to have been exposed to tobacco smoking before birth

Children with severe asthma are 3.6 times more likely to have been exposed to tobacco smoking before birth - even without later exposure - than children with a mild form of the disease, according to a multicenter study led by researchers at University of California, San Francisco.

23 Aug 2011

Viewpoints: NY Times deconstructs health rulings; Issa on law & deficit; veterans' care needs boost

At a time when the nation's credit has been downgraded for the first time and our country is struggling to finance and reform existing entitlement programs, Obamacare's creation of new entitlements increases dependency on government and pushes our country deeper into a fiscal crisis of Greek proportion. As Congress and the president seek bipartisan ground to address the national debt, we must remember that the first step out of a hole is to stop digging.

23 Aug 2011

Johns Hopkins establishes Center for Personalized Cancer Medicine with Commonwealth Foundation gift

A $30 million gift from the Commonwealth Foundation for Cancer Research has enabled the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center to establish a Center for Personalized Cancer Medicine. The gift from the Richmond, VA- based foundation, will be used to support research and the development of new technologies that pinpoint the novel genetic characteristics of each patient's cancer.

22 Aug 2011

Stable communities see no influence of alcohol outlets on neighborhood violence

The density of businesses that sell alcohol in a community has been tied to local levels of violence, but new research has found that the influence depends on the nature of the community. More stable communities can see little to no influence but more disorganized communities are not so fortunate.

22 Aug 2011