“If we take this study seriously, and I believe we should, it invites serious reconsideration of the apparent finding in Whitehall that occupational status causes health in adulthood. This does not mean that inequality in social status does not matter. To the contrary, the Case and Paxson results highlight the centrality of early life health exposures on late life outcomes. This is a different causal mechanism, and would result in a greater focus on interventions focused on poor children than on promoting greater workplace equality later in life as a means for improving adult health.”
—Reconsidering the Link Between SES and Health in Whitehall | Inequalities
April 2012
45 posts
“Idiopathic is an adjective used primarily in medicine meaning arising spontaneously or from an obscure or unknown cause.”
—Idiopathic - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
“A slender person with overweight friends is more likely to gain weight than one whose buddies are svelte. That’s the conclusion of a new study that mined 30 years’ worth of data and found that obesity correlates strongly with social networks.”
—3quarksdaily: Six Degrees of Obesity? (note: I saved that link when it came out, in 2007; since then, there has been a lot of work from Andrew Gelman and others to show that the findings of Fowler and Christakis are less robust than claimed in some parts of their analysis)
“Le chômage, perçu comme principal problème social, a tendance à masquer les atteintes à la santé liées au travail. Cadres et ouvriers sont touchés. L’intensification des tâches, la pression des délais, la précarisation des statuts et la fragmentation des équipes entraînent une forte dégradation des conditions de vie dans l’entreprise. Ainsi, jamais le nombre de salariés exposés aux substances cancérigènes n’a été aussi important. Fragilisées par l’exigence hiérarchique et l’obligation de résultats, certaines personnes en viennent à se suicider.”
—Le travail, lieu de violence et de mort, par Annie Thébaud-Mony (Le Monde diplomatique)
“1 confirmed case: “pandemic”; all domestic news except high-profile sex scandals is preempted. Anderson Cooper announces a special investigation.”
—Dull in a New Way: Swine Flu Cataclysm
“Baths especially were reserved for those with enough servants to bring the tub and fill it, then carry away the tub and dirty water. Balzac had referred to the charm of rich young women when they came out of their bath. Manuals of civility suggest that this would take place once a month, and it seems that ladies who actually took the plunge might soak for hours: an 1867 painting by Alfred Stevens shows a plump young blonde in a camisole dreaming in her bathtub, equipped with book, flowers, bracelet, and a jeweled watch in the soap-dish. Symbols of wealth and conspicuous consumption.”
—Those sexy, smelly Victorians
“Finally, should we leave public health promotion to other arenas? Here is what the Lancet editors say: “Effective, evidenced-based public health measures do not include nudging people into healthy behaviours or getting NHS staff to lecture patients on healthy lifestyles. They include measures such as raising taxes on cigarettes, alcohol, fatty foods, and sugary drinks, reducing junk food and drink advertising to children, and restricting hours on sale of alcoholic drinks.” This strikes me as a false dilemma. First, pairing health promotion through “nudging” in the physicians office with large-scale policy changes is likely to create a positive policy interaction. Smoking is once again an informative example where the public was steered away from cigarettes in the store and informed about the consequences of smoking from their medical providers. The editors are right to argue that we should be guided by evidence-based strategies, but the science of communicating with patients effectively is still a work in progress. Not all strategies will work, but the medical community should pay careful attention to messages that work well and train (in medical school and continuing education) to be the messengers of positive health behaviors.”
—Doctors as Agents of Public Health Promotion | Inequalities
“Les vaccins constituent avec les antibiotiques, les deux classes de médicaments les plus utiles à la santé des hommes. Dans un avenir, sans doute proche, des pathologies fréquentes et graves pourront être prévenues par ces médicaments notamment le paludisme et les infections par le HIV. Cependant les vaccins soulèvent des polémiques sans fin, qui ont souvent un écho dans les médias traditionnels mais qui se développent davantage sur le web et sont parfois reprises à l’étranger dans des documentaires télévisés. Trois questions sont soulevées par les vaccins : leur efficacité, leurs risques, leur stratégie d’utilisation. Leurs risques sont à l’origine de polémiques très populaires dans les forums sur internet Leur efficacité est généralement admise. Leurs stratégies, c’est à dire les populations qu’ils cherchent à atteindre, sont, pour certains vaccins, très discutées par les épidémiologistes et les responsables de la santé publique. Cet article après une introduction décrivant les vaccinations dont l’efficacité et les bénéfices sont reconnus analysera cinq vaccinations : contre la grippe, la coqueluche, l’hépatite B , le BCG, les infections à HPV , la rougeole, qui ces dernières années ont suscité quelques polémiques populaires et de nombreuses discussions scientifiques”
—Que penser des controverses sur les vaccinations ? - L’actualité médicale vue par le professeur Claude Béraud
“Pour conclure, il n’est pas incroyable que la récente interdiction de fumer dans les lieux de convivialité diminue le nombre d’infarctus, n’en déplaise au fumeurs. C’est possible, et même probable, puisque l’on a en main les chiffres, les expériences et la théorie qui permettent de l’expliquer, donc plus qu’une simple corrélation. Tout cela est bien documenté, publié. Ce n’est pas nécessairement vrai, mais pour le montrer il faudrait une explication encore plus convaincante et au moins aussi bien étayée.”
—Tabagisme passif et risque d’infarctus : nous prend-on pour des demeurés? - Le blog des Bactéries et de l’Evolution
“Bribing smokers with cash incentives helps them stop, US research suggests.”
—BBC NEWS | Americas | Cash bribes ‘help smokers quit’
“The risk of dying from a shark attack anywhere in the world in 2004 was 1 in 913,200,766. You are 93 times more likely to be killed by contact with a hot water tap than in a shark attack.”
—Risk of death from shark attack (via srqm)
“When a dozen consumers gathered over the weekend to discuss health care at the behest of President-elect Barack Obama, they quickly agreed on one point: they despise health insurance companies.”
—Back in December 2008: At House Party on Health Care, the Diagnosis Is It’s Broken - NYTimes.com
“The OECD Health Care Quality Indicators project, initiated in 2002, aims to measure and compare the quality of health service provision in the different countries. An Expert Group has developed a set of quality indicators at the health systems level, which allows to assess the impact of particular factors on the quality of health services.”
—Health Care Quality Indicators
