Washington–A new study from The Pew Charitable Trusts, "Making Hard Choices: Navigating the Economic Shock of Unemployment," examines how American families cope with unexpected financial setbacks and how those periods of economic uncertainty draw down financial resources. The report studies families across race and income levels, revealing different experiences resulting from unemployment and the difficult choices many of them face.
Culture
Consumer-directed health plans (CDHPs) offer low premiums but high deductibles on the premise that patients who are faced with deductibles of $1,000 or more for individual coverage (or twice that for family coverage) will shop around for the best price for the health care.
In practice, however, that's not the case, according to a new study by the USC Schaeffer Center for Health Policy and Economics and the RAND Corporation.
New research out of St. Michael's Hospital has found that multiple factors independently predict what makes youth more likely to make repeat suicide-related behaviour.
The study, led by Dr. Anne Rhodes, a research scientist at the hospital's Suicide Studies Research Unit, looked at whether factors such as permanent removal from the parental home by the courts due to maltreatment, neighbourhood size or income, gender, severity of first visit to an emergency department, age or having a mental disorder made youth significantly more likely to repeat suicide-related behavior.
Researchers led by scientists at Case Western Reserve University have turned to an unlikely model to make medical devices safer and more comfortable—a squid's beak.
Many medical implants require hard materials that have to connect to or pass through soft body tissue. This mechanical mismatch leads to problems such as skin breakdown at abdominal feeding tubes in stroke patients and where wires pass through the chest to power assistive heart pumps. Enter the squid.
Mention "high costs," "financing" and "safety" in the same sentence as "commercial nuclear power plants," and most people think of the multi-billion-dollar construction or operational phase of these facilities, which provide 20 percent of the domestic electric supply. Those concerns, however, are now emerging as aging nuclear power plants reach retirement age, and electric utilities confront the task of deconstruction, or decommissioning, nuclear power stations.
AUGUSTA, Ga. – Schizophrenia patients experiencing relapse are 29 times more likely than healthy individuals to have a urinary tract infection, researchers report.
Urinary tract infections, which can cause painful and frequent urination, are common but patients hospitalized for schizophrenia are even more likely to have a UTI than healthy individuals or even others whose illness is under control, said Dr. Brian J. Miller, psychiatrist and schizophrenia expert at the Medical College of Georgia at Georgia Regents University.
Chinese fishing boats catch about US$11.5 billion worth of fish from beyond their country's own waters each year – and most of it goes unreported, according to a new study led by fisheries scientists at the University of British Columbia.
The paper, recently published in the journal Fish and Fisheries, estimates that China's foreign catch is 12 times larger than the catch it reports to the United Nation's Food and Agriculture Organization, an international agency that keeps track of global fisheries catches.
Researchers from the universities of Granada and Murcia have confirmed the effectiveness of a spray containing 1% malic acid, which greatly improves xerostomy, or dry mouth, caused by anti-depressant drugs. This product, combined with xylitol and fluorides, in a spray format, stimulates saliva production in patients with this illness, thus improving their quality of life.
A new study of Hong Kong chronic pain patients suggests that targeting feelings of mental defeat could prevent severe depression, anxiety and interference with daily activities.
The concept of mental defeat has previously been associated with post-traumatic stress disorder, but the new study applies it to the experience of chronic pain.
Mental defeat occurs when pain patients view their pain as an 'enemy' which takes over their life and removes their autonomy and identity.
Among patients with painful chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy, use of the anti-depressant drug duloxetine for 5 weeks resulted in a greater reduction in pain compared with placebo, according to a study in the April 3 issue of JAMA.
In an analysis that included data on more than 10 million Medicare beneficiaries admitted to acute care hospitals with a heart attack, congestive heart failure, or pneumonia between 2002 and 2010, 30-day mortality rates for those admitted to critical access hospitals (designated hospitals that provide inpatient care to individuals living in rural communities) increased during this time period compared with patients admitted to other acute care hospitals, according to a study in the April 3 issue of JAMA.
Sensitive sites: UC Research examines preservation of Southwest archaeology in time of tight budgets
When surveying in the Upper Basin of the Grand Canyon National Park in April 2011, University of Cincinnati faculty and students discovered a previously unknown 17-room subterranean pueblo that likely dates back to the 12th century.
For UC anthropology graduate student Ryan Washam, that find – in which he took part – helped spark his current research in how federal agencies are conducting archaeological and environmental protection and preservation efforts in a time of tight budgets.
WASHINGTON — A survey of current and former college athletes finds depression levels significantly higher in current athletes, a result that upended the researchers' hypothesis. The finding published in Sports Health suggests the need for more research to understand depression among college athletes.
(Washington)- Newly identified pregnancy-related events, such as stillbirth or pre-term birth, may dramatically increase a woman's risk of developing a potentially deadly blood clot immediately after pregnancy, according to the results of a large, population-based study published online today in Blood, the Journal of the American Society of Hematology (ASH).
ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, ILL. (April 2, 2013) – Asthma is becoming an epidemic in the United States. The number of Americans diagnosed with asthma grows annually, with 26 million currently affected. And according to a new study, nearly two-thirds or more of all asthmatics also have an allergy, which can make this spring season particularly bothersome.