Categories
Cardiovascular
Diagnostics
Endocrinology
Health Insurance
Medical Devices
Mental Health
Nutrition
Oncology
Public Health
Sexual Health
Buy dildos and vibrators.
Popular Articles

New Figures Highlight Hidden Human Cost Of Alcohol Misuse In Scotland
Commenting on new figures published yesterday which show that one in 20 deaths are attributable to alcohol, Dr Peter Terry, Chairman of the BMA in Scotland, said:
buy viagra
10 Students Receive Scholarships For Outstanding Work In Public Health Systems Research
AcademyHealth and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation have awarded ten scholarships to graduate students who demonstrate outstanding potential to contribute to the field of public health systems research (PHSR).
News of the day
New Maryland Law Requires Insurers To Provide Incentives For EHR Adoption
Maryland Gov. Martin O"Malley (D) on Tuesday signed a bill making the state the first to require private insurance companies to offer physicians financial incentives for adopting electronic health records, the Baltimore Sun reports. Starting in 2011, insurers will have to provide physicians who adopt EHRs with increased reimbursements, a single sum payment or in-kind services that have monetary value. According to the Sun, physicians who do not adopt EHR systems by 2015 could face penalties. The bill also requires Maryland to establish a health information exchange that eventually will link all the state"s physicians, hospitals, medical laboratories and pharmacies. Last summer, the Maryland Health Care Commission asked two state physician groups to develop and launch pilot health information exchange programs in an effort to see how a state system should work. Groups wanting to design the statewide system have until June 12 to submit applications to the commission, which will award the contract in August. The seed money for the system will come in part from stimulus funds and from hospitals fees. According to state Health Secretary John Colmers, the network is likely to be gradually phased in with the first elements coming online as early as fall. Colmers said that he expects "fairly rapid adoption" of the information exchange system, adding that "with the incentives in the stimulus package and in this bill beginning to go into effect in 2011, it will be important for it to be certainly ramped up and ready to operate by then." O"Malley said, "This is where government and private health care providers can come together to really improve not only the quality of care but also, hopefully, create some cost savings as well." Colmers said, "The goal here in Maryland was to assure that all of the payers pull their oars in the same direction," adding that the promise of EHRs "comes when it"s done in a coordinated fashion, across all payers" (Brown/Brewington, Baltimore Sun, 5/19).
Sexual Health

Helping Youth Avoid Risky Behavior: Family-Based Program

Children"s behavior is determined, in part, by their genes and by the settings in which they develop. A new longitudinal study describes how a family-based prevention program helped rural African American teens avoid engaging in risky behaviors, even if some of them may have had a genetic risk to do so. "This study demonstrates that parents play an important role in protecting their children from initiating harmful behaviors, especially when the children"s biological makeup may pose a challenge," notes Gene H. Brody, Regents" Professor, director of the Center for Family Research at the University of Georgia, and the lead author of the study. The study, by researchers at the University of Georgia, the University of Iowa, and Vanderbilt University, appears in the May/June 2009 issue of the journal Child Development. The researchers developed a program called "Strong African American Families" to help rural African American 11-year-olds avoid such risky behaviors as drinking, smoking marijuana, and having sex. Almost 650 children and their mothers participated in the two-and-a-half-year study, which compared mothers and children who took part in the prevention program with mothers and children who only received information about adolescent development. The parents enrolled in the program learned parenting skills that included vigilance, emotional support, communication, and promotion of racial pride. Children who took part learned strategies for setting positive goals, making plans to attain those goals, and avoiding influences that could block their success. Two years later, the researchers collected DNA from saliva samples from all the children to see if they carried a gene found to increase the risk of substance use. Teens who had the gene but didn"t participate in the program were almost twice as likely to have engaged in the risky behaviors as teens who had the gene and took part in the program. "Much of the protective influence of participation in the prevention program came through the program"s enhancement of parenting practices that deter teens" involvement in risky behaviors," adds Brody. "The power of such parenting practices to override genetic predispositions to drug use and other risky behaviors demonstrates the capacity of family-centered prevention programs to benefit developing adolescents." The study was supported by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, and by the National Institute on Drug Abuse. Summarized from Child Development, Vol. 80, Issue 3, Prevention Effects Moderate the Association of 5-HTTLPR and Youth Risk Behavior Initiation: G-E Hypotheses Tested via a Randomized Prevention Design by Brody, GH, and Beach, SRH (University of Georgia), Philibert, RA (University of Iowa), Chen, Y-f , and Murry, VM (formerly at the University of Georgia, now at Peabody College, Vanderbilt University). Copyright 2009 The Society for Research in Child Development, Inc. All rights reserved. Sarah Hutcheon Society for Research in Child Development


Add your comment:
Name:
Site address: http://
Your message:
Enter today\\\\'s date, 2 digits
(spam protection):

© Copyright 2009