Culture

In a Perspective article appearing in this week's New England Journal of Medicine, public health researchers examine how recommendations in a new report from the Institute of Medicine (IOM)—"Accelerating Progress in Obesity Prevention: Solving the Weight of the Nation"—square with American's opinions about the obesity epidemic.

An economist says that many car race fans do, indeed, watch NASCAR races because they want to see car wrecks, but more of them have been tuning in to see who actually wins the race since the circuit adopted its Chase for the Cup championship series in 2004.

It's peak season for many sports, and with that comes sport-related injuries. Among those injuries is shoulder joint dislocation. According to a literature review in the August 2012 issue of the Journal of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons, most incidences of shoulder joint instability are the result of traumatic contact injuries like force or falling on an outstretched arm; a direct blow to the shoulder area; forceful throwing, lifting or hitting; or contact with another player.

By the Numbers

DETROIT — The Michigan Department of Community Health (MDCH) has unveiled the state's Infant Mortality Reduction Plan, a strategy that includes significant recommendations developed from medical research conducted by the Perinatology Research Branch (PRB) of the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute for Child Health and Human Development, National Institutes of Health (NICHD/NIH), at the Wayne State University School of Medicine.

SEATTLE – Despite the increasing awareness of the problem of obesity in the United States, most Americans don't know whether they are gaining or losing weight, according to new research from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington.

You're on the bus, and one of the only free seats is next to you. How, and why, do you stop another passenger sitting there? New research reveals the tactics commuters use to avoid each other, a practice the paper published in Symbolic Interaction describes as 'nonsocial transient behavior.'

Medical staff struggle to spot problem drinking in their patients unless they are already intoxicated, according to research by the University of Leicester.

The work led by Dr Alex J Mitchell, consultant at Leicestershire Partnership NHS Trust and honorary senior lecturer at the University, reveals that clinical staff often overlook alcohol problems in their patients when they do not present intoxicated.

The German Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care (IQWiG) published the results of a literature search for evidence-based clinical practice guidelines on the treatment of people with heart failure. The aim of the report is to identify those recommendations from current guidelines of high methodological quality that may be relevant for the planned revision of the module "heart failure" in the disease management programme (DMP) for coronary heart disease (CHD). According to the results of the report, there is no compelling need for revision of any part of the DMP module.

DENVER, July 31, 2012 – Most people who have diabetes, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol have difficultly managing all three conditions; indeed, success is fleeting for those who do manage all three, according to a Kaiser Permanente Institute for Health Research study that appears online in the American Heart Association journal Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes.

COLUMBIA, Mo. — The recent economic recession has caused many changes in the business landscape across the country, including high unemployment rates. Due to these high rates and the struggling economy, University of Missouri researchers have found that in recent years the number of Americans engaging in entrepreneurship has risen significantly. Maria Figueroa-Armijos, a doctoral candidate in the University of Missouri Truman School of Public Affairs, says that this trend could be positive for the future.

From how relationships affect our health to the psychology of an awkward party moment to why we often choose ignorance over information – a guide to some talks with new research in personality and social psychology at the APA Convention in Orlando, Aug. 2-5, 2012. How are they doing?

Costs of forgiveness in marriage

Long-term sick leave is a burden for individuals and society at large, yet very little is known about the underlying reasons for it. Researchers at the Norwegian Institute of Public Health, in collaboration with Australian and British institutes, have identified anxiety as a more important risk factor than previously thought.

Who would have thought that our noses and Microsoft Windows' infamous blue screen of death could have something in common? But that's the case being made by a new research report appearing online in The FASEB Journal (http://www.fasebj.org). Specifically, scientists now know exactly why we sneeze, what sneezing should accomplish, and what happens when sneezing does not work properly.

A new University of Houston (UH) experiment takes an unconventional look at the treatment for domestic violence, called intimate partner violence (IPV) by the researcher and three other people, by focusing on changing the perpetrators' psychological abuse during arguments.

Hypothermia in trauma victims is a serious complication and is associated with an increased risk of dying. A new study published in BioMed Central's open access journal Critical Care has found that the key risk factor was severity of injury. However, environmental conditions and medical care, such as the temperature of the ambulance or temperature of any fluids administered intravenously, also increased risk.