Poverty News and Research

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38.2 million Americans live in households that suffer directly from hunger and food insecurity

Hunger in American households has risen by 43 percent over the last five years, according to an analysis of US Department of Agriculture (USDA) data.

30 Oct 2005

Depression alone affects approximately 1.3 million Australian women ever year

Women's health problems, depression and child abuse represented a major health crisis in Australia, a seminar focusing on women and mental health over the weekend was told.

24 Oct 2005

Quality of care determines heart attack outcomes

Ninety days after acute myocardial infarction (AMI) - or heart attack - death rates for African Americans and white patients were found to be significantly higher in hospitals that disproportionately serve African-American patients than in hospitals that serve mainly white patients, according to a major new study led by researchers at Dartmouth Medical School.

24 Oct 2005

U.S. health inequalities cause 84,000 extra deaths every year

Research estimates that health inequalities between white and black Americans cause 84,000 extra deaths every year – equating to a virtual hurricane Katrina every week, says an editorial in this week’s British Medical Journal.

20 Oct 2005

Russian moonshine contributes to very high death rate among Russians

Heavy alcohol consumption contributes to numerous problems in Russia, not the least of which is a very high death rate.

13 Oct 2005

Hospitals alter billing and collection practices for uninsured patients

Many hospitals have adopted more generous charity-care guidelines for uninsured patients after a barrage of publicity about aggressive hospital billing and collection practices and a spate of lawsuits alleging hospitals overcharged uninsured patients, according to a study released today by the Center for Studying Health System Change (HSC).

12 Oct 2005

Tropical diseases such as sleeping sickness, schistosomiasis, river blindness, hookworm, elephantiasis, and blinding trachoma are being ignored

"The big three" infections AIDS, TB and malaria have caught the world's attention but other disabling and fatal infectious diseases in Africa are being ignored, say three eminent tropical disease researchers in the international health journal PLoS Medicine.

11 Oct 2005

Employment gap may be due, in part, to the "poverty trap"

Between 2003 and 2004 the employment gap widened between the number of working-age Americans with disabilities who are employed and those workers without disabilities, a new report on Capitol Hill shows.

9 Oct 2005

It's more difficult for unwed mothers to get married, and if they do, they tend to not marry well!

Women who have children outside of marriage are less likely than other single women to marry, and when they do marry, their husbands tend to be less well-matched, according to a new study.

4 Oct 2005

School meals system failing needy children

New research just published by researchers at the University of Dundee demonstrates that the current system of free school meals is failing many of the most needy children.

28 Sep 2005

Unwed mothers are less likely than other women to improve their socio-economic status through marriage

Unwed mothers are significantly less likely to marry and more likely to cohabit than women without children. If they do marry, their husbands are more likely to have poor job prospects.

27 Sep 2005

Leaving deprivation out of standard risk assessments for heart disease is potentially denying life saving treatment to those who need it most

A person's estimated chances of developing heart disease, and being allocated "primary preventive" treatment, is currently calculated using the standard risk factors of smoking, blood pressure, cholesterol, age, sex, and diabetes. These are typically pulled together in the internationally used Framingham Risk Score.

26 Sep 2005

Millenium Development Goals fail to include the goal of improving the mental health of the poor

Because the Millenium Development Goals fail to include the goal of improving the mental health of the poor, the world may not reach many of the goals, say researchers in an analysis published by PLoS Medicine.

19 Sep 2005

Parents advised to turn off the TV, encourage outdoor play

If mothers of preschoolers perceive their neighborhood as unsafe, their children tend to watch more television, but differ little in amounts of outdoor play or overweight, compared to peers in safer neighborhoods. Drawing from a study of three-year-olds in 20 U.S. cities, researchers reported these findings in the September issue of Pediatrics.

7 Sep 2005

Education is the most effective way to empower the rural poor in Africa

"Education is the most effective way to empower the rural poor to get out of poverty and to ensure that the Millennium Development Goals are met in sub-Saharan Africa," according to Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).

7 Sep 2005

Relationship between parental perception of neighborhood safety and obesity

6 Sep 2005

Chernobyl: The True Scale of the Accident

A total of up to four thousand people could eventually die of radiation exposure from the Chernobyl nuclear power plant (NPP) accident nearly 20 years ago, an international team of more than 100 scientists has concluded.

5 Sep 2005

South Sudan in the grip of an HIV/AIDS epidemic

According to a United Nations report, Southern Sudan is in the midst of an HIV/AIDS epidemic and most of its people are without clean water, sanitation or education services.

5 Sep 2005

Attention doctors: Want patients to follow your advice? Treat them with dignity

In a national survey of more than 5,000 Americans, those who said they were treated with dignity during their last medical encounter were more likely to report higher levels of satisfaction with their care, adhere to therapy and get preventive services.

1 Sep 2005

13 million children now living in poverty in the U.S.

In newly released data it appears that poor families and children are being left behind as the benefits of a steadily growing economy fail to trickle down to their level.

31 Aug 2005