Poverty News and Research

RSS

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

Building stronger health systems key to reaching the health millenium development

Building up and strengthening health systems is vital if more progress is to be made towards the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), the World Health Organization (WHO) said in a new report. Unless urgent investments are made in health systems, current rates of progress will not be sufficient to meet most of the goals.

22 Aug 2005

President Bush's No Child Left Behind act appears to be leaving children behind

The nation's main program for educating the disadvantaged, Title I, is hampered by loopholes that prevent it from fulfilling its mission, according to a new study.

18 Aug 2005

Women whose mothers reported cohabitation were 57 percent more likely than other women to report cohabitation themselves

When it comes to living together with a man, daughters often follow the lead of their mothers, according to a new study.

16 Aug 2005

Psychologists find that two different thought processes can explain how we gauge our risk of disease

Psychologists have gained insight into how people judge their personal health risks. The findings suggest that people aren't horribly off the mark as long as they do not rely on media reports and stick to what's happened to people they know.

15 Aug 2005

Psychologists have gained insight into how people judge their personal health risks

The findings suggest that people aren't horribly off the mark as long as they do not rely on media reports and stick to what's happened to people they know.

7 Aug 2005

Australia to fight HIV/AIDS and improve maternal health in the Philippines

Australia will contribute $2.8 million to a United Nations program to improve maternal health and tackle HIV/AIDS in the Philippines, the Parliamentary Secretary for Foreign Affairs, Bruce Billson, announced today at the Regional Ministerial Meeting on Millennium Development Goals in Jakarta.

4 Aug 2005

More than one fourth of individuals with severe mental illness (SMI) were victims of violent crime in the past year

...eleven times the rate in the general population, according to a study in the August issue of Archives of General Psychiatry.

1 Aug 2005

Wealthy kids are not always healthy kids

An international team of researchers from the UK, Estonia, Denmark and Norway, have found that children from poorer families are not necessarily less healthy than those with more affluent and better educated parents.

23 Jul 2005

America's Children: Key National Indicators of Well-Being 2005

The adolescent birth rate has reached another record low, the death rate for children between ages 1 and 4 is the lowest ever, young children are more likely to receive their recommended immunizations, and fourth graders are scoring better in math, according to a yearly compendium of statistics from federal agencies concerned with children.

20 Jul 2005

Discrimination of people living with HIV/AIDS in Nigeria

People living with HIV/AIDS face many forms of stigma and discrimination. This is the case in whichever country they may live, as has been shown in a number of previous research studies.

19 Jul 2005

Efforts to help parents of young children move out of poverty likely to have long-term benefits for children's school performance and social-emotional well being

It is well known that children who live in poverty have more trouble in school and more problems socially than other children. Now investigators funded by the National Institute of Child Health and Development (NICHD) find that while children who live in chronic poverty from birth through age 9 score lowest on tests of school readiness and social competence, poverty at any time during early childhood is detrimental.

14 Jul 2005