Women's Health USA 2007

Women's Health USA 2007: "...HRSA is pleased to present Women’s Health USA 2007, the sixth edition of the Women’s Health USA data book. To reflect the everchanging, increasingly diverse population and its characteristics, Women’s Health USA selectively highlights emerging issues and trends in women’s health. Data and information on autoimmune diseases, gynecological and reproductive disorders, and digestive disorders are a few of the new topics included in this edition [...] "

ACE Study - Major Findings - Adverse Childhood Experiences

ACE Study - Major Findings - Adverse Childhood Experiences: "Childhood abuse, neglect, and exposure to other traumatic stressors which we term adverse childhood experiences (ACE) are common. Almost two-thirds of our study participants reported at least one ACE, and more than one in five reported three or more ACE. The short- and long-term outcomes of these childhood exposures include a multitude of health and social problems. The ACE Study uses the ACE Score, which is a count of the total number of ACE respondents reported. The ACE Score is used to assess the total amount of stress during childhood and has demonstrated that as the number of ACE increase, the risk for the following health problems increases in a strong and graded fashion:

alcoholism and alcohol abuse
chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD)
depression
fetal death
health-related quality of life
illicit drug use
ischemic heart disease (IHD)
liver disease
risk for intimate partner violence
multiple sexual partners
sexually transmitted diseases (STDs)
smoking
suicide attempts
unintended pregnancies

In addition, the ACE Study has also demonstrated that the ACE Score has a strong and graded relationship to health-related behaviors and outcomes during childhood and adolescence including early initiation of smoking, sexual activity, and illicit drug use, adolescent pregnancies, and suicide attempts. Finally, as the number of ACE increases the number of co-occurring or “co-morbid” conditions increases."

My heart's in Accra - Stewart Brand and thinking about Megacities

My heart's in Accra - Stewart Brand and thinking about Megacities: "Brand argues that squatters care about:
- Security of tenure - they want assurances that they'll own their homes before they improve them
- Location - they want to be near jobs
- Water, sanitation, electricity
- Protection from crime, whether it comes from the police, or from gangs
- Education - it's one of the main reasons to move to cities

They don't care about:
- Housing - they build it themselves
- Phones - everyone's got a mobile phone
- Starvation - people don't starve in cities, while they still do in the countryside
- Medical care - it's available to a much greater extent than it is in rural areas
- Unemployment - Everyone works, though generally in the informal economy: food stalls, internet cafes, mobile phone booths, bars, hairdressers, churches, tailors, copy shops [...]"

Kiva vs. MicroPlace - What's the Difference? | NextBillion.net - Development Through Enterprise

Kiva vs. MicroPlace - What's the Difference? | NextBillion.net - Development Through Enterprise

Peanut Butter and Patents

When PlumpyNut came out, I was concerned about powdered milk as a main ingredient after Dr. Cunningham's discussion of the prevalence of lactose intolerance across Africa, and the way lactose intolerance mimics water-born intestinal diseases. Now, I'm concerned for entirely different reasons:

Peanut Butter and Patents : "Finally caught up to Anderson Cooper's report about PlumpyNut, which aired on Sixty Minutes a little over a week ago. Besides intimating that Doctors Without Borders had invented PlumpyNut (which it didn't), the 11-minute CBS report completely neglected to mention that PlumpyNut is patented. (Thanks to Josh for sending me the link.) Okay, you say, CBS has produced a feel-good story that doesn't have to be encyclopedic. But given the fact that Cooper says that there's not enough PlumpyNut to go around and ties the shortage to a lack of vision from food aid donors, you would think he might have at least mentioned other challenges, like negotiations over licensing and franchising rights stemming from the patent(s) [...]"

Kenya's Maternal Wards Deliver Abuse With Babies

Kenya's Maternal Wards Deliver Abuse With Babies: "...Based on their own experience and that of mothers they'd attended, midwives told Women's eNews of beatings, verbal abuse, filth and blood-soaked beds. They also recounted the infamous month two years ago when medical students performed Caesarian sections on most women who walked through the door, regardless of whether the operation was necessary [...]"

Sexual Violence in the Congo

10 new victims of rape show up everyday at Panzi Hospital in the DRC (Photo credit: Hazel Thompson of New York Times). In 2006, 27000 sexual assaults were reported in South Kivu province alone. This theme - violence against women and girls - will be addressed in the presentation on Mental Health and Violence, as well as War and Refugees.

Rape Epidemic Raises Trauma of Congo War - NYT

critical update to our discussion on rotavirus vaccine

G2P[4] and G12P[6] Rotavirus, Bangladesh | CDC EID: "...During the 2001-2005 rotavirus seasons, G1P[8] (36.4%) and G9P[8] (27.7%) were the dominant strains, but G2[4] and G12P[6] were present in 15.4% and 3.1% of the rotavirus-positive patients, respectively. During the 2005-06 rotavirus season, G2P[4] (43.2%) appeared as the most prevalent strain, and G12P[6] became a more prevalent strain (11.1%) during this season. Because recently licensed rotavirus vaccines include only the P[8] specificity, it is unknown how the vaccines will perform in settings where non-P[8] types are prevalent [...]"

Where is maternal and child health now?

After we were honored with Dr. Rosenfield's contributions in class yesterday, this article in the Lancet appropriately revisits his efforts to direct researchers to the M in MCH:

ScienceDirect - The Lancet : Where is maternal and child health now?: "21 years ago, Rosenfield and Maine1, 2 and 3 posed the question "where is the M in MCH?", conceiving the safe motherhood movement. What has happened to maternal and child health (MCH) since? [...] Inadequate focus and funding is certainly one of many reasons for this slow progress. Additionally, progress has been impeded at times by competition, conflicts, and changes of direction in global policy.3 We consider two such competitions—the mother versus the child, and community versus clinical care—and how these become obsolete with a shift to a continuum of care approach.

How did mother versus child become a competition? Despite the name, in the 1980s most MCH programmes focused on the child, with maternal care mainly limited to family planning. The justifiable need for more attention for women contributed to the downplaying of links between maternal and child health to such an extent that the ten action points for safe motherhood in 19973 did not mention the purpose of motherhood—a live, healthy newborn baby. Meanwhile child health programmes focused primarily on infectious diseases, largely ignoring the causes of 4 million neonatal deaths every year.5 The separation of maternal health and child health programmes contributed to inaction for newborn health...'"

Wide Income Gap Linked To Deaths In Both Rich And Poor Nations

Wide Income Gap Linked To Deaths In Both Rich And Poor Nations: " A wide income gap between the most affluent and the worst off in society is closely associated with higher death rates worldwide, especially for younger adults, finds a study published on the British Medical Journal website (bmj.com) as part of a global theme issue on poverty and human development."

Computer Game Helps Ugandan Children Recovering From Cerebral Malaria

Computer Game Helps Ugandan Children Recovering From Cerebral Malaria

Excess Female To Male Births In Canada Linked To Chronic Dioxin Exposure

Excess Female To Male Births In Canada Linked To Chronic Dioxin Exposure: "Almost 90 Canadian communities have experienced a shift in the normal 51:49 ratio of male to female births, so that more girls than boys are being born, according to two new studies. James Argo, who headed the research, attributes this so-called 'inverted sex ratio' of the residents in those communities to dioxin air pollutants from oil refineries, paper mills, metal smelters and other sources [...]"

HIV Is Spread Most By People With Medium Levels Of HIV In Blood, Says Study

HIV Is Spread Most By People With Medium Levels Of HIV In Blood, Says Study: "People with medium levels of HIV in their blood are likely to contribute most to the spread of the virus, according to new research published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences."

Distribution of nets splits malaria fighters - International Herald Tribune

Distribution of nets splits malaria fighters - International Herald Tribune: "...Villages like Maendeleo are at the center of a debate that has split malaria fighters: how to distribute mosquito nets.

Recently, Dr. Arata Kochi, the blunt new director of the World Health Organization's malaria program, declared that as far as he was concerned, 'the debate is at an end.' Virtually the only way to get the nets to poor people, he said, is to hand out millions free.

In doing so, Kochi turned his back on an alternative long favored by the Clinton and Bush administrations %u2014 distribution by so-called social marketing, in which mosquito nets are sold through local shops at low, subsidized prices %u2014 $1 or so for an insecticide-impregnated net that costs $5 to $7 from the maker %u2014 with donors underwriting the losses and paying consultants to come up with brand names and advertise the nets [...]"

200 journals join in theme issues on poverty and human development

200 journals join in theme issues on poverty and human development: "Through an international collaboration, more than 200 medical and scientific journals are publishing theme issues this week on the relationship between poverty and human development. The initiative, coordinated by the Council of Science Editors, includes presentations on seven of the journal articles which will be webcast live from the National Institutes of Health on Monday, October 22, 2007."

The effects of malnutrition on child mortality in developing countries

The effects of malnutrition on child mortality in developing countries [Bull World Health Organ. 1995] - PubMed Result: "Conventional methods of classifying causes of death suggest that about 70% of the deaths of children (aged 0-4 years) worldwide are due to diarrhoeal illness, acute respiratory infection, malaria, and immunizable diseases. The role of malnutrition in child mortality is not revealed by these conventional methods, despite the long-standing recognition of the synergism between malnutrition and infectious diseases. This paper describes a recently-developed epidemiological method to estimate the percentage of child deaths (aged 6-59 months) which could be attributed to the potentiating effects of malnutrition in infectious disease. The results from 53 developing countries with nationally representative data on child weight-for-age indicate that 56% of child deaths were attributable to malnutrition's potentiating effects, and 83% of these were attributable to mild-to-moderate as opposed to severe malnutrition. For individual countries, malnutrition's total potentiating effects on mortality ranged from 13% to 66%, with at least three-quarters of this arising from mild-to-moderate malnutrition in each case [...]"

Jay Keasling and synthesizing the future

My heart's in Accra - Pop!Tech: Jay Keasling and synthesizing the future: "...Keasling is interested in manufacturing Artemisinin. Artemisinin is the latest weapon in the battle against malaria, a disease that effects 300 to 500 million people a year, killing 1-3 million of them. 90% of the people the disease kills are children under five years old. The economic impact of malaria is profound - nations effected are estimated to lose up to 50% of their GDP due to productivity losses from the disease [...]"

'They thought I was cursed'

Great interviews in this story:

BBC NEWS | Special Reports | 'They thought I was cursed': "Obstetric fistula, a hole linking the vagina with the bladder or rectum, occurs when women - often in their early teens - are in labour for days. Campaigners at a global conference on maternal health in London this week, entitled Women Deliver, have emphasised that a simple and cheap operation can cure it [...]"

Feedback for Female Literacy, Women & Development

• Excellent – esp. in view of last minute solo performance. Dr. Kessler was her usual involved, thoughtful, informative self!
• Good participation by the class. Good discussion.
• Great with involving the class in discussion. Good time management. Extra props for being comfortable leading the class alone!
• Excellent presentation of a very broad set of topics; good class interaction and good contributions by class and professors.
• I enjoyed the presentation! She presented it very well. Slides need to have larger words though! Well-done.
• Given that the other presenter didn’t come, I think the presentation was good. It was nice having such extensive class conversation.
• Could have organized the slides a bit better.
• Very good presentation considering that you had to do it alone! I like the informal discussion set-up more than the lecture format in previous classes.
• Nice presentation. Good job getting group discussion going – putting good questions to the group. Nice job presenting on your own! Only suggestion – fewer words per PowerPoint slide.
• Great job! I enjoyed the balance of class involvement.
• “Empowered presentation” Excellent – raised may complex questions and good discussion – very good use of examples – very good relationship to other classes.

Women Deliver

A result of the Women Deliver conference to be held in London this week (http://www.womendeliver.org/) the Lancet is running a special issue dedicated to Maternal Health. It has some interesting articles etc... worth checking out (if you havent already)