Friday, October 9, 2009
QD: News Every Day on insurance coverage, primary care shortage and H1N1
ACP Internist's daily digest of internal medicine in the news continues with who's covering the uninsured, students weighing in on why they eschew primary care careers, and H1N1's widespread but less lethal path.
Covering the uninsured
While the number of uninsured people rose slightly from 2007 to 2008, more people were covered by government programs as employer-sponsored coverage continued to decline, according to the U.S. Census. The ACP Advocate reports census figures showing that 15% of the population was uninsured in 2008, increasing from 45.7 million to 46.3 million. However, coverage by private plans fell from 67.5% to 66.7% and coverage by employers fell from 59.3% to 58.5%. Government coverage rose from 27.8% to 29%.
Primary care shortage
Medical students weigh in on health reform, and have their doubts. Also, they won't go into primary care. "When it's a difference of $200,000 in your paycheck, it's tough," one student said.
Flu update
The H1N1 pandemic has been more widespread than lethal, notes the Harvard Health Letter. The virus seems to cause fewer cases of serious disease than expected. Harvard experts discussed the latest at a forum, with video posted online. In short, estimates for the death rate for H1N1 range between one death for every 2,000 symptomatic cases and one death for every 14,000 (0.007%). In comparison, the death rate for seasonal flu is roughly one death for every 1,000 to 2,000 cases. Seasonal flu infects roughly 5% to 20% of the population annually, whereas pandemics infect 25% to 40%. This H1N1 epidemic may not rise to pandemic levels.
In case you missed it ...
Doctors drive medical consumption, not patients. Illness and patient preference play a much smaller role. NPR reports on one epidemiologist's lifelong work. Meanwhile, a Newsweek columnist weighs evidence-based medical treatments against clinical judgment. It's the age-old question: How does a study impact treatment of the patient sitting before a doctor, seeking a cure?
Labels: epidemiology, evidence-based medicine, flu, H1N1, health insurance, medical education, primary care shortage, QD
posted by Ryan DuBosar at
12:34 PM
0 Comments
Monday, March 2, 2009
Urbanites have trouble finding healthy food
The availability of healthy food choices and quality of diet is worse for impoverished urban denizens than suburban residents, according to two studies conducted by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. The studies examined healthy food availability and diet quality in the city of Baltimore and its surrounding county.
They found 46% of lower-income neighborhoods had a low availability of healthy foods, items such as fresh fruits and vegetables, skim milk and whole wheat bread as recommended by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Geography plays a larger role in dietary health than previously estimated. And, 24% of the black participants lived in neighborhoods with a low availability of healthy food compared with 5% of whites.
The second study examined the availability of healthy foods across 159 neighborhoods and 226 neighborhood stores in Baltimore and the surrounding county. Researchers found that 43% of predominantly black neighborhoods and 46% of lower-income neighborhoods had low availability of healthy foods, compared to 4% and 13%, respectively, in predominantly white and higher-income neighborhoods.
Where you live is a major determinant of your health, and staff at ACP Internist noted that this study could happen in our hometown of Philadelphia and probably get the same result. It could happen in any city, we suspect.
Labels: epidemiology, Nutrition
posted by Ryan DuBosar at
8:00 AM
1 Comments
Monday, February 16, 2009
Database may speed diagnosis of drug-resistant TB
A new publicly available Web database allows quick searches of specific mutations associated with drug-resistant tuberculosis. The tool includes the most common mutations found for the major groups of anti-TB drugs, something researchers hope will speed development of new sequence-based diagnostic tools and avoid treatment delays "during which patients receive suboptimal therapy that may lead to development of additional resistance and further spread of drug-resistant TB," according to researchers who developed the tool.
The database is easy to use, just click on a drug class, such as aminoglycosides or ethambutol, select a gene associated with resistance, and a histogram pops up displaying the mutations and corresponding confidence levels.
The research behind the database is explained in a study by led by Harvard epidemiologists published in the current issue of PLoS Medicine.
Labels: epidemiology, tuberculosis
posted by Janet Colwell at
9:51 AM
0 Comments
Monday, November 17, 2008
Congrats, Burlington: America's healthiest city
Congratulations to Burlington, Vt., which a CDC report found to be America's healthiest city because 92% of its residents reported being in good health.
The AP reported Burlington has relatively low poverty, higher average education, a large employer offering generous health benefits and community support for recreational activities and healthy foods.
At the bottom of the list was Huntington, W.Va., which had twice as much poverty and less than half of the number of college-educated people.
Labels: CDC, epidemiology
posted by Ryan DuBosar at
9:33 AM
0 Comments
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Googling the flu
The datameisters at Google say they can track potential flu epidemics two weeks earlier than the CDC by tracking people's searches for flu information online.
Google's non-profit arm, Google.org, is trying to apply its heft as the most popular search engine to tackle poverty, renewable energy and small-business growth. And now, they're applying the power of the millions of global users looking for health data to track the flu.
According to Google's blog, millions of users around the world search for online health information weekly. There are more flu-related searches during flu season, more allergy-related searches during allergy season, and more sunburn-related searches during the summer. A pattern emerges when all the flu-related search queries from each state and region are added together, Google says.
To test their hypothesis, Google compared search queries with CDC data to find out which searches occured during flu season, and then extrapolated that frequency provides an estimate how much flu is circulating. They used last year's flu season as a test and now claim to have accurately estimated flu levels one to two weeks faster than published CDC reports across the nine U.S. surveillance regions.
Additional details are available in a draft manuscript and a later version has been accepted in Nature.
Labels: epidemiology, flu, infectious disease
posted by Ryan DuBosar at
9:09 AM
0 Comments
ACP Internist hosted Grand Rounds on June 16, wrapping up the best of the medical blogosphere. Click here for the complete wrap-up.
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Send comments to ACP Internist staff at acpinternist@acponline.org.
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- QD: News Every Day--flu's growing tally
- QD: News Every Day--no holidays for Congress
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American Journal of Medicine
Also known as the Green Journal, the American Journal of Medicine publishes original clinical articles of interest to physicians in internal medicine and its subspecialities, both in academia and community-based practice.
Clinical Correlations
A collaborative medical blog started by Neil Shapiro, ACP Member, associate program director at New York University Medical Center's internal medicine residency program. Faculty, residents and students contribute case studies, mystery quizzes, news, commentary and more.
db's Medical Rants
Robert M. Centor, FACP, contributes short essays contemplating medicine and the health care system.
Everything Health
EverythingHealth is designed to address the rapid changes in science, medicine, health and healing in the 21st Century.
Getting Better with Dr. Val
Getting Better is the continuation of Dr. Val Jones' previous blog at Revolution Health. It is devoted to helping people understand health issues from a balanced, scientifically sound perspective.
HealthHombre
A roundup of health policy news drawn from a database of hundreds of Web sites.
Interact MD
Michael Benjamin, ACP member, doesn't accept industry money so he can create an independent, clinician-reviewed space on the Internet for physicians to report and comment on the medical news of the day.
Kevin, MD
The alter ego of Kevin Pho, ACP Member, is the closest thing to royalty in the medical blog world.
LSUHSC-S Medical Library Evidence Alert
Major guidelines, systematic reviews, meta-analyses and/or major reviews by national and international organizations.
PLoS Blog
The Public Library of Science's open access materials include a blog.
White Coat Rants
One of the most popular anonymous blogs written by a doctor.
