Poverty News and Research

RSS

Viewpoints: The promise and perils of prostate screening; Presidential candidates shy away from frank discussion of spending

After an exhaustive process, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force has announced its final recommendation on PSA-based prostate cancer screening. It finds that the known harms of screening outweigh the potential benefits for men who have no cancer symptoms. It notes that all screening studies have demonstrated considerable harms associated with screening, but only one major study found evidence that screening saves lives -- and that study has some internal inconsistencies.

24 May 2012

Progress report on health law's risk adjustment rule; Status check on state-based exchanges

News outlets offer updates regarding state progress related to developing the health law's insurance exchanges, the timing for risk adjustment rules and the release of the final federal rule on the health insurance premium tax credit.

23 May 2012

Congress weighs change in survey for Medicaid payments; Expansion of Colo. program slower than expected

Also in state Medicaid news is a report on a proposal to cut Illinois' costs and the controversy over funding in Minnesota's program.

23 May 2012

Opinion pieces discuss global action on food security

The Hill's "Congress Blog" on Friday published two opinion pieces addressing global food security, the G8 summit, and the New Alliance for Food and Nutrition Security.

22 May 2012

Obama announces $3B food initiative for Africa

In a Symposium on Global Agriculture and Food Security on Friday, President Barack Obama "announced a plan to accelerate investments in developing world agriculture to meet rising food demands and improve nutrition, calling the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition a moral, economic and security imperative," IIP Digital reports.

22 May 2012

Tackling 'hidden crisis' of childhood undernutrition critical

"Nearly more than 170 million children under age five suffer from undernutrition, a hidden crisis that robs them -- and their countries -- of a healthy and prosperous future," Cat Cora, chef and founder of Chefs for Humanity, writes in an opinion piece on the Feed the Future website.

22 May 2012

Blogs address food security, African agriculture in anticipation of high-level meetings in Washington

Several blogs recently have published posts in anticipation of a symposium on food security taking place in Washington on Friday, at which President Barack Obama is expected to speak, and the G8 summit at Camp David in Maryland on Friday and Saturday, both of which will focus on food security and agriculture in Africa.

19 May 2012

Loss of U.S. funding for UNFPA 'would be devastating' to family planning services in developing countries

"By voting to ban any U.S. contribution to UNFPA" in the FY 2013 State and Foreign Operations appropriations bill, the House Appropriations Committee on Thursday "made a judgment call that saving the lives of women and girls around the world is simply not a U.S. priority," Valerie DeFillipo, president of Friends of UNFPA, writes in a Huffington Post "Global Motherhood" opinion piece.

19 May 2012

The Millennium Village Project: a correction

Paul Pronyk, lead author of the Millennium Village paper, releases the following statement about the paper, Pronyk PM, Muniz M, Nemser B, et al, for the Millennium Villages Study Group. The effect of an integrated multisector model for achieving the Millennium Development Goals and improving child survival in rural sub-Saharan Africa: a non-randomised controlled assessment. Lancet 2012; published online May 8. DOI:10.1016/S0140-6736(12)60207-4.

18 May 2012

More research needed into how transgender persons in Asia, Pacific affected by HIV, stigma, report says

A report released Thursday in Bangkok by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Asia Pacific Transgender Network (APTN) says more research needs to be conducted to determine the extent to which transgender persons in Asia and the Pacific are affected by HIV, are socially ostracized, and lack fundamental rights, including access to basic health care, a UNDP press release reports.

18 May 2012

icddr,b, AmeriCares launch new cholera-fighting program in the Horn of Africa

AmeriCares and icddr,b have launched a new cholera-fighting program in the Horn of Africa, where recent rains have increased fears of large-scale outbreaks.

18 May 2012

Innate differences in immunity can be detected at birth

Innate differences in immunity can be detected at birth, according to new research at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. And babies with a better innate response to viruses have fewer respiratory illnesses in the first year of life.

18 May 2012

Paper-based diabetes device can be adapted for other applications

With epidemics of Type 2 diabetes looming in rural India, China and other areas of the world where poverty limits the availability of health care, scientists are reporting development of an inexpensive and easy-to-use urine test ideally suited for such areas. The report describing the paper-based device, which also could be adapted for the diagnosis and monitoring of other conditions and the environment, appears in ACS' journal Analytical Chemistry.

17 May 2012

Agreement on voluntary land guidelines shows collaboration on food security is possible

"The endorsement of voluntary guidelines to improve the way countries govern access rights to land, fisheries and forest resources by the Committee on World Food Security (CFS) on Friday marks a historic milestone not only for the way in which land tenure is managed, but also for international consensus-building," Jose Graziano da Silva, director-general of the U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), writes in this post in the Guardian's "Poverty Matters" blog.

16 May 2012

Viewpoints: Approving drugs quickly; Berwick: In health care, cheaper can mean better; Health costs 'persistent' concern

For about 20 years, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has charged pharmaceutical companies "user fees" for reviewing drug-approval applications. The revenue allows the FDA to hire more evaluators, which allows useful drugs to reach patients faster. Now the Prescription Drug User Fee Act needs reauthorization, as it does every five years. Legislators should not dillydally.

15 May 2012

More than one in seven U.S. seniors faces threat of hunger

A new study that looked at the hunger trends over a 10-year period found that 14.85 percent of seniors in the United States, more than one in seven, face the threat of hunger. This translates into 8.3 million seniors.

15 May 2012

As MDGs set to expire in 2015, U.N. panel to advise on approaches to development; African Progress Panel calls for 'big push' on continent

"The presidents of Indonesia and Liberia -- Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and Ellen Johnson Sirleaf -- and the prime minister of the United Kingdom, David Cameron, are to co-chair a U.N. panel to advise on approaches to development after the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) expire in 2015," SciDev.Net reports.

14 May 2012

HIV prevention treatment must include medical, behavorial approaches: APA

A drug that has been shown to prevent HIV infection in a significant number of cases must be combined with behavioral approaches if the U.S. health care establishment is to succeed in reducing the spread of the virus, according to the American Psychological Association.

14 May 2012

Differences in regional readmission rates for heart failure tied to socioeconomics, availability of care

Differences in regional hospital readmission rates for heart failure are more closely tied to the availability of care and socioeconomics than to hospital performance or patients' degree of illness, according to research presented at the American Heart Association's Quality of Care & Outcomes Research Scientific Sessions 2012.

14 May 2012

Safer indoor sex work spaces promote health and safety of street-involved women

Safer indoor sex work spaces provide important and potentially life-saving benefits to sex workers including reduced exposure to violence and HIV and improved relationships with police, according to a study published by the Gender and Sexual Health Initiative of the BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS (BC-CfE) and the University of British Columbia.

11 May 2012

Poverty News and Research

Viewpoints: The promise and perils of prostate screening; Presidential candidates shy away from frank discussion of spending

Progress report on health law's risk adjustment rule; Status check on state-based exchanges

Congress weighs change in survey for Medicaid payments; Expansion of Colo. program slower than expected

Opinion pieces discuss global action on food security

Obama announces $3B food initiative for Africa

Tackling 'hidden crisis' of childhood undernutrition critical

Blogs address food security, African agriculture in anticipation of high-level meetings in Washington

Loss of U.S. funding for UNFPA 'would be devastating' to family planning services in developing countries

The Millennium Village Project: a correction

More research needed into how transgender persons in Asia, Pacific affected by HIV, stigma, report says

icddr,b, AmeriCares launch new cholera-fighting program in the Horn of Africa

Innate differences in immunity can be detected at birth

Paper-based diabetes device can be adapted for other applications

Agreement on voluntary land guidelines shows collaboration on food security is possible

Viewpoints: Approving drugs quickly; Berwick: In health care, cheaper can mean better; Health costs 'persistent' concern

More than one in seven U.S. seniors faces threat of hunger

As MDGs set to expire in 2015, U.N. panel to advise on approaches to development; African Progress Panel calls for 'big push' on continent

HIV prevention treatment must include medical, behavorial approaches: APA

Differences in regional readmission rates for heart failure tied to socioeconomics, availability of care

Safer indoor sex work spaces promote health and safety of street-involved women

Industry Focus eBook - Neurology/Neuroscience - 2nd edition eBook

Bringing real-time analytics to downstream bioprocess monitoring

Designing fluidic architecture for scalable diagnostic platforms

Evaluating new approaches for rare disease genomics

Latest News