The secret to understanding guys has been found: limit their access to women (PDF). Well, that’s the heterosexual secret — I imagine this theory applies to gay/bi guys also, but with significant differences in practice…
Research by Daniel Kruger has shown that in areas where women outnumber men, the men are less likely to be married; while areas where men outnumber women, men are more likely to be married. Well, that’s in the 20-24 population — the trends don’t hold for older men. From an evolution perspective, it makes sense. Dr. Kruger:
“Men have a greater reproductive benefit than women from having a greater quantity of relationships. If they can leverage their scarcity into attracting multiple short-term partners, they will not have as much of an incentive to settle down.”
Apparently, as men get older, they lose their primary asset — their youthful good looks. It’s only then that they’re finally forced to settle down and get married.
So, practically speaking, if you’re a woman and you’re looking to get a man to commit, then you should probably move to Salinas, CA or Ft. Lauderdale, FL.
admin Relationships
So, Salt N Pepa aside, a study was released in the June issue of Adolescent Health (although I can’t find it :-/ ) discussing the effectiveness of a media campaign at getting parents to talk to their kids about sex. Says Dr. Doug Evans, the lead author:
“We found that abstinence messaging delivered to parents through mass media is efficacious in promoting parenting-child communication about sex and thus may be an effective public health strategy.”
My problem with this is that there’s an underlying assumption that if parents tell their kids to not have sex, they’ll actually listen. I like the idea of using media campaigns to influence parents to talk to their kids, and this study apparently suggests it works. I just wish the message that’s being disseminated was more about having dialog about sex, including having a healthy/safe sex life.
admin Sexual Health
The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) released analysis from the 2009 Safety Culture surveyed this past week. Well, they announced it…I feel like it was released before that. I’m also not sure how in-depth the analysis was, as it looks mostly like they just ran some frequencies and correlations. Regardless, you can read all about it on their website.
This survey is sent out to hospital staff (particularly non-physicians: nurses, respiratory therapists, HUCs, etc) to get a sense of how they feel their work culture is doing concerning patient safety. The idea being if staff don’t have an interest in providing safe care to patients, then they won’t provide safe care to patients. There are a number of dimensions of safety culture measured, but the big result being reported from this analysis was reporting, itself:
On average, over half (52 percent) of hospital staff surveyed did not report any medical errors in their hospital over a 12-month period.
This is obviously a big concern for hospitals — if staff don’t report medical errors, how can you work to reduce them? In general, changing culture is a difficult task, but the majority of hospitals were attempting to do so through a variety of techniques:
- SBARs (58%)
- Walking around (51%)
- Buying new equipment (32%)
- Forming a committee (25%)
- Making a bulletin board (15%)
I’m not sure how all of this solves our patient safety crisis, but apparently it does work to increase scores — particularly in small, non-teaching, or government run hospitals.
admin Patient Safety
My coworkers seem to think it’s funny to share various articles about infectious diseases (especially rabies) with me in hopes that it’ll freak me out even more. My manager shared with me an article from the magazine, The Week. In it, two articles related to bats - one about White Nose Syndrome (an emerging fungal infection that’s taking out bats by the thousands), and one about “Mutant Rabies” (cue dramatic music). Apparently there’s a rabies strain that is now capable of spreading through close social contact:
The frightening thing about this mutant virus is the way it is communicated, say officials at the Centers for Disease Control. Unlike most rabies strains, it’s not carried from animal to animal through bites. Instead, it is spread through close social contact, like the common cold or flu.
I googled around for a while, in hopes of finding out more about this, but was unsuccessful. Hopefully it’s just some little magazine trying to sensationalize another potential epidemic. Then again, have you ever seen Quarantine?
admin Rabies
A new study by the Kaiser Foundation found that people are becoming less concerned about HIV. The percent of respondents reporting HIV/AIDS as the top health concern in the US dropped from 44% in 1995 to 6%.
While the majority of people understand how HIV is transmitted, there are still a significant handful of people that don’t. Did you know you can get HIV from…
- sharing a drinking glass (20%, up from 15% in 2000)
- using a toilet seat (12%)
- swimming in a pool (7%)
Just to be clear, you can’t get HIV from any of the above routes. Well, maybe you could in an extreme situation - but as a general rule, I don’t think people would sit on a bloody toilet seat. It’d be interesting to see the survey broken down by risk factor, as I’d imagine hope that people at high risk (e.g., MSM, IDU) would better be able to identify the routes of transmission than people at very low risk.
Nonetheless, this survey underscores the importance of continued public health efforts, including President Obama’s HIV campaign, NineAndAHalfMinutes.org.
admin HIV/AIDS
Apparently, for minority children, self-affirmation has a significant effect on their GPA. A two-year follow-up study was published last week in Science. This study had children, starting in 7th grade, write about relationships, interests, and personal values. Students in the test group showed as much as a 0.41 increase in their GPA compared to the control group. This relationship was not found in white students. Researcher Geoffrey Cohen explains why:
“It takes the sting out of potential failure. ‘I feel like, Even if I do poorly here on this test or in school, I am still fundamentally a good person. It anchors my sense of self-integrity.’”
Another study released last week suggests that Facebook users have lower grades than non-users. Although the researcher admitted to Time that it could be bad students are attracted to Facebook:
“Maybe [Facebook users] are just prone to distraction. Maybe they are just procrastinators.”
admin Mental Health, Technology
A new study to be published in June in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine found a link between the state that you live in, and your mental state. The study looked at BRFSS respondent’s frequencies of depression, stress, and other mental problems; the actual measure used was the percent of respondents reporting 14 or more mentally unhealthy days. Naturally, Hawaii had the lowest rate in the country (6.6%), and Kentucky had the highest (14.4%).
The other state-level data isn’t currently available, but the CNN article about this study suggests that the Upper Midwest (ND, SD, NE, KS, MN, IA, MO, WI, IL) has the lowest rates (<8%), while the region by Kentucky had the highest rates (>12%). I’ll need to wait patiently to see where exactly Minnesota falls on this list…
admin Mental Health
The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) is starting a new ad campaign (well, adding on to a 2007 ad campaign) to encourage patients to ask questions. It, frankly, raises a good point - that there are so many things that we scrutinize and worry about, but our health isn’t always at the top of the list.
According to AHRQ and Kaiser Family Foundation:
57 percent of Americans do not believe that preventable medical errors occur often. However, an estimated 1.5 million medication errors happen every year in hospitals, doctors’ offices, nursing homes and pharmacies, according to the Institute of Medicine.
They happen all the time! They happen at the healthcare organization I work for, and others throughout Minnesota (Some are publicly reported). There certainly have been many errors in my father’s care in the VA system. There are many times that the care is changed, or a diagnosis considered, just because of the patient’s or family member’s speaking up — it’s happened multiple times in my father’s case. So, being an engaged patient can be an important component of receiving quality care. Not to mention, wouldn’t you just want to know what’s happening to you?
admin Patient Safety
The Minnesota Department of Health released the 2008 HIV stats this morning, and hosted a telebriefing in the afternoon. While the HIV incidence rate remains the same as last year (6.6 per 100,000 people), there were still a couple of interesting/disturbing trends.
In young men (under 25), the number of incident HIV cases hit 42, a point it hasn’t been since the late 1980s. This marks the 8th year of an upward trend. Every young male with an identified mode of transmission indicated risky sexual activity with another male, and 9% also identified injection drug use. For young females, 94% were infected from heterosexual activity, and 6% from injection drug use. This is incredibly important for prevention efforts - men who have sex with men (MSM) can, apparently, also have sex with women. So, it serves as a reminder of the need to differentiate between behavior and self identification, and also demonstrates a need to incorporate comprehensive education into prevention efforts.
There were no perinatal HIV transmissions last year! That’s not a huge accomplishment, as there has only been 3 cases in the past 5 years. Nonetheless, I like hearing that babies aren’t getting HIV.
There’s also the category of “Late Testers” — people who were either concurrently diagnosed with AIDS, or progressed to AIDS within a year of their HIV diagnosis. This group made up 31% of cases - typically older, Hispanic or African Born patients. A late HIV diagnosis means starting treatment late, which increases your chance of dying. Then there’s the public health impact — these people have been infected for years, and may potentially have exposed other people during that time.
admin HIV/AIDS
As if high school was already difficult, now there’s just one more social nightmare to worry about: super acne. With any regular use of antibiotics, you run the risk of developing resistant organisms. Every time you use an antibiotic, you don’t kill 100% of the bacteria. Over time, you essentially breed bacteria to survive. Acne, which is caused by a bacteria, is no exception.
The news article details the story of a 16 year old whose acne was successfully treated with tetracycline. Two months after his acne disappeared, it started to reappear again — less than three weeks before prom. This is happening more frequently, with as many as 30% of acne patients having “super acne”. A dermatologist has other treatment options, including different antibiotics and anti-inflammatory medications.
On a slightly different note, some people might welcome such an affliction. It would provide additional opportunity to pop that zit.
admin Health/Medicine
