Public Health News and Research

RSS

Nano device provides quick test for bird flu

A team of scientists from Singapore's Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology have come up with a new test which can quickly detect the deadly H5N1 bird flu virus.

24 Sep 2007

Framingham Heart Study 100K result published

BioMed Central has announced that 17 research articles carried out using genetic data from the Framingham Heart Study (FHS), are being published as a supplement to BMC Medical Genetics.

23 Sep 2007

APHA urges Bush to reconsider and sign the SCHIP bill

"President Bush stated this week that he intends to veto pending legislation that would reauthorize the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), which is set to expire Sept. 30. The bill would extend health coverage to approximately 4 million uninsured children and continue providing coverage to 6 million children.

23 Sep 2007

Scientists decipher mechanism behind antimicrobial 'hole punchers'

In the battle against bacteria, researchers have scored a direct hit.

21 Sep 2007

Brugia malayi's secrets revealed

An international team of researchers has revealed the genetic secrets of one of the world's most debilitating human parasites, Brugia malayi (B. malayi), which the World Health Organization estimates has seriously incapacitated and disfigured more than 40 million people around the globe.

21 Sep 2007

Functional brain imaging shows neural circuits contributing to pedophilia

Pedophilia, the sexual attraction of adults to children, is a significant public health concern and it does not respond well to treatment.

21 Sep 2007

Scientists solve genetic code of parasitic worm that causes elephantiasis

More than 150 million people worldwide are infected with filarial parasites -- long, thread-like worms that can live for years inside the human body and cause severe, debilitating diseases such as elephantiasis.

21 Sep 2007

$Women with low levels of vitamin D have an increased risk of hip fracture$

Women with low levels of vitamin D have an increased risk of hip fracture

Women with low levels of vitamin D have an increased risk of hip fracture, according to a study led by the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health presented this week at the 29th annual meeting of the American Society for Bone and Mineral Research at the Hawaii Convention Center.

21 Sep 2007

Legal proceedings can be calming and supportive

It may seem that therapy and law do not share a common bond, but one University of Arizona law professor is making that connection by developing a body of knowledge to prove that legal proceedings can be calming and supportive.

21 Sep 2007

Cautioned urged on use of personal

Imagine this: you visit your clinician, undergo genetic testing, and then you are handed a miniature hard drive containing your personal genome sequence, which is subsequently uploaded onto publicly accessible databases.

21 Sep 2007

Public health response to the poisoning of Mr Alexander Litvinenko

The poisoning of Mr Alexander Litvinenko with radioactive polonium-210 in London in November 2006 had political consequences internationally and presented the Health Protection Agency with some unique public health challenges. Professor Pat Troop, Chief Executive of the Agency, will open a session on the response to the incident at the HPA conference at Warwick University today and give a keynote address on how it was handled.

20 Sep 2007

Modelling data reveals cost effectiveness of HPV vaccine

New modelling research presented at the Health Protection Agency's annual conference will show that up to 70% of cases of cervical cancer and 95% of cases of genital warts in men and women could be prevented by the introduction of human papilloma virus (HPV) vaccination into the UK 's national immunisation programme. This is in addition to the cancer cases already prevented by the NHS cervical screening programme.

20 Sep 2007

10% of women infected with human papillomavirus by age 16

A new study by the Health protection Agency estimates at least 10% of young women in England have been infected with one or more strains of the human papillomavirus (HPV) by the age of 16. The study will be discussed on the last day of the Health Protection Agency annual conference in Warwick.

20 Sep 2007

Secondhand smoke exposure could interfere with academic test performance

Teens exposed to secondhand smoke at home are at increased risk of test failure in school, suggests a new study in the Journal of Adolescent Health.

20 Sep 2007

Researchers provide genetic associations from a genome-wide scan for cardiovascular disease traits

Researchers from Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM), Boston University School of Public Health (BUSPH), and the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI), have completed analyses of a genome-wide scan on a group of two generations of participants from the landmark Framingham Heart Study (FHS).

20 Sep 2007

PrEP strategy could dramatically slow the spread of HIV

Giving a daily antiretroviral pill to people to prevent HIV could profoundly slow the spread of the infection in sub-Saharan Africa, where it is a full-blown epidemic, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine researchers report.

20 Sep 2007

Sanofi Pasteur's new H5N1 vaccine shows promise

Sanofi pasteur, the vaccines division of sanofi-aventis Group, has announced data showing that its new investigational H5N1 pandemic influenza vaccine containing a proprietary adjuvant achieved a high immune response at the lowest dose of H5N1 antigen reported to date.

18 Sep 2007

Public opinion about Alzheimer's disease among Blacks, Hispanics, and Whites

Alzheimer's disease is still a mystery to people of different races and a large percentage of people across the board are unaware that treatments are available to reduce symptoms.

18 Sep 2007

Maternal depression and controlling behavior associated with increased stress response in infants

Teenage pregnancy is widely recognized to be a major public health concern.

18 Sep 2007

Women generally unaware of landmark hormone therapy study

Despite the huge publicity generated by a 2002 study on the potential dangers of hormone therapy for postmenopausal women, new research from the Stanford University School of Medicine found that only 29 percent of women surveyed knew about the study two years later.

18 Sep 2007