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Expert offers eight tips to help avert winter slips and falls

We all followed the "spring forward" adage as daylight savings time began but due to icy, wintery conditions, many have continued to "spring forward" due to tumbles on the ice.

15 Mar 2013

First Edition: March 15, 2013

Today's headlines include reports about President Barack Obama's third day of Capitol Hill visits in pursuit of progress on the budget.

15 Mar 2013

Weekend reading: Humanizing hospitals, splurge of health data and huge sodas

Every week reporter Ankita Rao selects interesting reading from around the Web.

15 Mar 2013

South Sudan hospital sees influx of kala azar, malaria patients

VOA News examines an influx of patients suffering from kala azar, also known as visceral leishmaniasis, and malaria in a South Sudan hospital, writing, "The pediatric ward at the main hospital in Bentiu is overcrowded and under-staffed as an unusually high number of children suffering from kala azar and malaria have been brought in for treatment."

15 Mar 2013

UnitedHealth faces mental health parity legal challenge

Health insurance giant UnitedHealth Group has been sued in a class action for alleged violations of federal and state parity laws that mandate coverage for mental health claims on a level comparable to medical and surgical benefits.

15 Mar 2013

American Journal of Public Health publishes special issue on mental health stigma

In a historic first, the American Journal of Public Health has devoted an issue to covering stigma and discrimination against people with mental illnesses, a topic that traditionally is under-researched and under-reported.

15 Mar 2013

Cultural preferences for sons dampens contraception usage

While poverty and under-education continue to dampen contraception use in Nepal, exacerbating the country's efforts to reduce maternal and child mortality rates, researchers say another, more surprising factor may be more intractable: Deeply held cultural preferences for sons over daughters.

15 Mar 2013

U.S. must advocate for international agreement to address gender violence

"Having passed the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) in Congress, despite attempts to block it by extreme conservatives, the United States has demonstrated its commitment to ending gender-based violence at home and can now support the world's efforts to do the same," contributor Chloë Cooney writes in the RH Reality Check blog.

15 Mar 2013

Senate Dems block effort to undo health law

The tea-party-led effort, which was defeated 52-45, attempted to add language to a government spending bill that would repeal the law's funding.

15 Mar 2013

University of Toronto study shows parental divorce linked to smoking initiation in children

Both daughters and sons from divorced families are significantly more likely to initiate smoking in comparison to their peers from intact families, shows a new analysis of 19,000 Americans.

15 Mar 2013

Viewpoints: Failures in treating ovarian cancer; A moral analysis of obesity; Bloomberg's overreach

A new study has found widespread failure among doctors to follow clinical guidelines for treating ovarian cancer, which kills 15,000 women a year in this country. This disturbing news shows the kind of challenge that health care reformers are up against in improving medical care - even when cost is not the issue (3/13).

15 Mar 2013

Small study shows smartphones can be used to detect intestinal worms

IRIN examines the feasibility of using a smartphone equipped with a glass lens to detect the presence of parasitic worms in stool samples, a concept that "could have a significant impact on the diagnosis of intestinal parasites that affect millions in remote, rural parts of the world, where even the most basic medical testing is hard to come by."

15 Mar 2013

Article explores benefits of innovative programs for personalized health care

Two innovative programs designed to improve the availability of emerging medical technologies that can help patients receive more effective, efficient and personalized health care are advanced in a commentary written by a team of scientists and policy experts, including seven from Arizona State University, and published today in Science Translational Medicine.

15 Mar 2013

mHealth programs must measure health outcomes

"Since a lot of health revolves around information, public health experts had high expectations for the mobile phone," author and columnist Tina Rosenberg writes in the New York Times' "Opinionator" blog, adding, "But roughly a decade after the start of mHealth, as the mobile health field has come to be known, these expectations are far from being met.

15 Mar 2013

IRIN examines health worker shortage in Papua New Guinea

"Papua New Guinea is a Pacific country rich in natural resources, yet its health staffing levels are comparable to the world's poorest countries due to a rapidly retiring force and lack of qualified replacements," IRIN reports.

15 Mar 2013

Global Health Service Corps should also focus on health worker retention

Launched in March 2012 the Peace Corps, PEPFAR and the Global Health Service Corps, the Global Health Service Partnership aims to alleviate shortages of health care personnel in Tanzania, Malawi and Uganda by bolstering their medical education programs, Matt Fisher, a research assistant and project coordinator at the Center for Strategic & International Studies, says in the center's "Smart Global Health" blog.

15 Mar 2013

Roundup: Calif. GOP wants mental health gun audit; Philadelphia hospital admissions decline; N.C. Medicaid director details budget shortfall

A selection of health policy stories from California, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Kansas and Colorado.

15 Mar 2013

Report estimates employer costs that would result from states' refusal to expand Medicaid

According to Bloomberg, the report by Jackson Hewitt Tax Service Inc. estimates the cost to employers to be $1 billion. Meanwhile, other news outlets report on state-level decisions and developments related to the expansion.

15 Mar 2013

Study shows how oils and fats regulate feeling of satiety

Work groups at Technische Universit-t M-nchen under Prof. Peter Schieberle and at the University of Vienna under Prof. Veronika Somoza studied four different edible fats and oils: Lard, butterfat, rapeseed oil and olive oil.

15 Mar 2013

Study shows sex differences in math and reading scores persist in 75 nations

Malala Yousafzai, the teenaged advocate for Pakistani girls' education, was released from the hospital earlier this month. Most of the world's girls don't have to fight as hard as Yousafzai for their education. However, even in countries with high gender equality, sex differences in math and reading scores persisted in the 75 nations examined by a University of Missouri and University of Leeds study.

15 Mar 2013