Culture

DALLAS, Nov. 17, 2015 -- African Americans with major depressive symptoms - perceived stress, neuroticism, life dissatisfaction - had almost twice the increased risk of stroke and coronary heart disease, according to new research in the American Heart Association's journal Circulation: Quality and Outcomes.

While depression is recognized as a consequence of stroke and coronary heart disease, a common term for the buildup of plaque in the heart's arteries that could lead to heart attack, most studies have been conducted in white populations.

Highlights

November 17, 2015 - Minority patients are less likely to receive analgesic medications for abdominal pain at US emergency departments (EDs), suggests a nationwide study in the December issue of Medical Care. The journal is published by Wolters Kluwer.

New research indicates that minority patients seeking care in the emergency department were 22-30 percent less likely than white patients to receive analgesic medication.

In the lead-up to 21st meeting of the Conference of Parties (COP 21), 10 countries have come from behind to make marked progress in their ability to withstand the shocks and stresses of climate change, while five are distinctly less resilient, according to data released Tuesday (Nov. 17) by the University of Notre Dame Global Adaptation Index (ND-GAIN).

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- A legislator's experience with unionization earlier in life is positively related to voting in favor of pro-worker legislation once he or she holds elected office, says a new paper from a University of Illinois labor expert who studies unions and politics.

Ryan Lamare, a professor of labor and employment relations at Illinois, found that a legislator's occupational or familial experiences with unions before entering politics is associated with an uptick of between 2.5 to 4.5 percentage points in voting for union-supported issues.

AURORA, Colo. (Nov. 17, 2015) - Patients with no recent history of taking opioid pain medication had a 25 percent higher risk of chronically using the drugs if they received them when discharged from the hospital, according to researchers at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus.

Cunlin Wang, M.D., Ph.D., of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Silver Spring, Md., and colleagues studied recipients of intravenous (IV) iron (n = 688,183) enrolled in the fee-for-service Medicare program from January 2003 to December 2013. The study appears in the November 17 issue of JAMA.

While they're often linked with studying remote civilizations, the role of the contemporary anthropologist is changing. Stephanie Sadre-Orafai, a University of Cincinnati assistant professor of anthropology, will apply one example as she examines how anthropology is linked with the high fashion industry in New York. The presentation is part of a panel at the 114th annual meeting of the American Anthropological Association. Billed as the world's largest gathering of anthropologists, the meeting takes place Nov. 18-22, in Denver, Colorado.

WASHINGTON, Nov. 17, 2015 -- You've seen them in late night commercials and at your local pharmacy--little pills that claim to cure your cold, help you wake up or maybe help you lose weight. Vitamin and mineral supplements are everywhere and generate billions of dollars in revenue in the U.S. each year. But do they really work? Find out in this week's Reactions video: https://youtu.be/9gQoG0AT3kY.

Warning labels on medications about the dangers of driving are not enough to stop people getting behind the wheel with most driving while affected by drugs, according to (QUT) Queensland University of Technology road safety researcher Dr Tanya Smyth.

Dr Smyth, from QUT's Centre for Accident Research & Road Safety -- Queensland (CARRS-Q), is presenting her research on Prescription medicines and driving at the Tackling Drug Driving in Queensland: Leading Research and Contextual Issues symposium being held today in Brisbane.

DETROIT - A comprehensive care program that involves a team of specialists from multiple medical disciplines for treating injuries sustained from falls in older adults could help reduce hospital readmissions, according to researchers at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit.

Under the program, the 30-day readmission rate for falls declined 10 percent from 2012-13 and remained unchanged in 2014. The 30-90 day readmission rate from 2012-13 also declined, before rising slightly in 2014.

Understanding the differences in the behaviour of different seal species can help in the choice of the most effective measures to mitigate the seal-fishery conflict and in the sustainable management of seal stocks. A new study from the University of Eastern Finland provides novel and detailed information of the movements of ringed seals and grey seals in the Baltic Sea. The PhD thesis of Sari Oksanen, MSc, discovered that Baltic ringed seals range over large areas during the open water season, while most grey seals remain on smaller areas near their terrestrial resting sites.

Classifying an individual as being at "high risk" of developing a particular condition/disease has become a disease in its own right, and is turning the healthy into the sick, argues an expert in an editorial published online in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.

And doctors are as bad as patients at understanding what is meant by high risk and the anticipated benefit of any preventive treatment, says Professor Teppo Järvinen, of the Department of Orthopaedics and Trauma, Helsinki University Hospital, in Finland.

A new US bipartisan study (available at http://bit.ly/1NxehhC) advocates promoting global health to both "do the right thing" and advance wide-ranging foreign policy interests.

Written by former Senate Majority Leaders Tom Daschle (Democrat) and Bill Frist, (Republican), the report urges US policy-makers to expand "Strategic Health Diplomacy," pointing to malaria and hepatitis C among the most promising targets for a broader US role in global health.