Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

Stealing What's Free: Exploring Compensation To Body Parts Sources For Their Contribution To Profitable Biomedical Research, Jo-Anne Yau

The University of New Hampshire Law Review

[Excerpt] “At first blush, donating body parts in the name of science appears to be a beautiful solution to the problem of scarce body parts for research advancements. But a closer investigation reveals an ugly fact: the philanthropic donors—referred to as “Sources” in this article—are subjected to physical and financial exploitation.

Sources play a crucial and indispensable role in biotechnology. Without human body parts, most medical discoveries would not have been possible. Handsome profits can be derived from successful discoveries. But currently in the United States, when a Source provides body parts for research purposes, the researcher, research foundation, and …

Evaluation Of A Telephone-Based Support Group Intervention For Female Caregivers Of Community-Dwelling Individuals With Dementia, Laraine Winter, Laura N. Gitlin

Center for Applied Research on Aging and Health Research Papers

Family caregivers, the "second victims" or hidden patients in dementia care, are at risk for social isolation, stress, depression, and mortality. Telephone-based support (telesupport groups) represents a practical, low-burden, low-cost source of emotional support. The present study evaluated the feasibility and effectiveness of professionally led telephone-based support groups for female family caregivers of community-dwelling dementia patients. Recruited through various community sources, 103 female caregivers were randomized to the telesupport group treatment or a control condition. Effects on caregiver burden, depression, and personal gains were evaluated at 6 months, the main end point. Older caregivers (≥65) in telesupport reported lower depression …

A Delphi Survey Of Experts’ Opinions Regarding Prevention Of Impairment In Professional Psychology Training, Kin-Ming Chan

Dissertations

This study sought to identify the most important measures that may be implemented in professional psychology training to prevent the future impairment of professionals. An adjunctive research question of this study addressed how these important measures can be successfully implemented. A 2-round Delphi method was conducted. Twenty-eight experts in impairment prevention participated in the first round study, and 20 of them continued to participate in the second round. In the first round, the experts rated the importance of an original list of 38 preventive measures, suggested additional important preventive measures, and provided considerations for successful implementation of their most important …

Patient Handling Safety For Nursing Staff, Don Nielsen

Dissertations

The effectiveness of video scoring and feedback about the scoring of the components of safe patient transfers was observed among eight nursing staff members in a skilled nursing department within an acute care hospital.

An ABCA (and sometimes ABCDA), multiple baseline across individuals design was utilized in the study. The dependent variable under investigation was the percentage of safe lifting components. Following baseline measures, nursing staff participated in an information phase during which they reviewed and discussed components of safe patient transfers. A video scoring phase was introduced, during which, participants viewed and scored a model video of a patienttransfer. …

Biomolecular Tuning Of Electronic Transport Properties Of Carbon Nanotubes Via Antibody Functionalization, Kasif Teker, Dr. Eric Wickstrom, Balaji Panchapakesan

Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Faculty Papers

Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are remarkable solidstate nanomaterials due to their unique electrical and mechanical properties. The electronic properties of nanotubes combined with biological molecules such as proteins could make miniature devices for biological sensing applications. In this paper, the noncovalent interaction of single-wall CNTs with antibodies is presented for its potential applications for detecting overexpressed cell surface receptors in breast cancer cells. The degree of binding of antibodies on CNTs was found to be more than 80% for an extended sampling area by confocal microscopy. The key to achieve such high degree of functionalization is due to the separation of …

Combined Effects Of Aldehyde Dehydrogenase Variants And Maternal Mitochondrial Genes On Alcohol Consumption, Yedy Israel, Maria E. Quintanilla, Amalia Sapag, Lutske Tampier

Department of Pathology, Anatomy, and Cell Biology Faculty Papers

Two lines of rats bred to differ in their voluntary alcohol consumption — the alcohol-abstaining UChA rats and the alcohol-drinking UChB rats — differ in how effectively toxic acetaldehyde is removed during alcohol metabolism. UChB animals carry efficient variants of the aldehyde dehydrogenase 2 (ALDH2) genes and have active mitochondria, resulting in fast removal of acetaldehyde. UChA animals, in contrast, carry less efficient ALDH2 variants and less active mitochondria, which result in transient elevations of acetaldehyde levels after alcohol ingestion. Cross-breeding studies have demonstrated that the presence of active mitochondria inherited from UChB females can fully abolish the reduction of …

The Power Of Collaboration With Patient Safety Programs: Building Safe Passage For Patients, Nurses, And Clinical Staff, Karlene M. Kerfoot, Kathryn Rapala, Patricia R. Ebright, Suzanne M. Rogers

College of Nursing Faculty Research and Publications

Patient safety is a relatively new field, with many opinions and few effectively proven approaches. One factor is clear: optimal patient safety outcomes cannot be achieved in isolation. Although it is well recognized that multidisciplinary collaboration in the healthcare setting is necessary to effect patient safety, collaboration with resources external to healthcare-academia and industry in particular-will not only aid but also quicken the patient safety efforts. The authors outline a healthcare system's use of all available resources to build a patient safety program.

Psychometric Properties Of The Readiness For Hospital Discharge Scale, Marianne Weiss, Linda Piacentine

College of Nursing Faculty Research and Publications

The purpose of the study was to assess the psychometrics properties of the Readiness for Hospital Discharge Scale (RHDS), a 23-item instrument that measures patients' perception of readiness for discharge. Data were obtained from 356 respondents from two urban tertiary medical centers (adult and children's) in the midwestern United States who were participants in a larger study of predictors and outcomes of readiness for hospital discharge. Confirmatory factor analysis, contrasted group comparisons, and predictive validity testing supported the 4-factor structure and construct validity of the instrument. Following deletion of two poorly performing items, Cronbach's alpha for the revised 21item scale …

A Multilevel Analysis Of Socioeconomic Status And Prostate Cancer Risk, Maureen Sanderson, Ann L. Coker, Adriana Perez, Xianglin L. Du, Gerson Peltz, Mary K. Fadden

Health & Biomedical Sciences Faculty Publications and Presentations

PURPOSE

We investigated whether prostate cancer was associated with socioeconomic status (SES) at the individual level, area level, or a combination of both levels.

METHODS

This population-based case–control study of prostate cancer in men aged 65 to 79 years was conducted between 2000 and 2002 in South Carolina. Complete interviews were available for 407 incident prostate cancer cases and 393 controls (with respective response rates of 61% and 64%). We used educational level to measure individual-level SES and a composite variable capturing income and education from 2000 Census data to measure area-level SES.

RESULTS

After adjustment for race, age, geographic …

Chemoprevention Of Breast Cancer For Women At Hgh Risk, Kathryn Chan, Gloria J. Morris

Department of Medicine Faculty Papers

Breast cancer remains the second most common cause of cancer death in the United States. Several studies have identified cohorts of women at higher than average risk to develop this disease. These are women who are exposed to high levels of endogenous or exogenous estrogens, those with a family history of breast cancer, and those who harbor benign breast disease or genetic mutations that predispose to breast cancer. In this population group, adapting a chemoprevention strategy to decrease the risk of developing overt disease is a strong consideration. To this end, tamoxifen is the most accepted agent to date. This …

Howe V. Mgh And Hudson V. Texas Children's Hospital: Two Approaches To Resolving Family-Physician Disputes In End-Of-Life Care, Michael Moreland

Michael P. Moreland

No abstract provided.

The Role Of Bnp Testing In Heart Failure, Jenny Doust, Richard Lehman, Paul Glasziou

Jenny Doust

Brain natriuretic peptide (BNP) levels are simple and objective measures of cardiac function. These measurements can be used to diagnose heart failure, including diastolic dysfunction, and using them has been shown to save money in the emergency department setting. The high negative predictive value of BNP tests is particularly helpful for ruling out heart failure. Treatment with angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors, angiotensin-II receptor blockers, spironolactone, and diuretics reduces BNP levels, suggesting that BNP testing may have a role in monitoring patients with heart failure. However, patients with treated chronic stable heart failure may have levels in the normal range (i.e., BNP …

Using Electronic Patient Records In Mental Healthcare To Capture Housing And Homelessness Information Of Psychiatric Consumers, Richard Booth

Richard G Booth

No abstract provided.

Obligations In Offering To Disclose Genetic Research Results, Conrad Fernandez, Charles Weijer

Charles Weijer

No abstract provided.

Organochlorine Levels In Seawater And Sediment From The Florida Gulf Coast, If Present, Are Low. , Richard B. Philp

Richard B. Philp

Seawater and sediment from the Florida panhandle coast were assayed for a panel of 28 organochlorine insecticides and PCBs. No samples exeeded the detection limits of the analytical technique, which were well below levels reported for other ocean locales. Organochlorine levels in this area of the Gulf must be very low. This does not preclude their biomagnificatioon up the food web.

Organochlorine Levels In Seawater And Sediment From The Florida Gulf Coast, If Present, Are Low., Richard B. Philp

Richard B. Philp

Abstract Seawater and bottom sediment from two areas of the Gulf of Mexico near-shore waters along the Florida panhandle, one near Panacea (South of Tallahassee) and the other, St. Joseph Bay, about 100 km to the west, were analyzed for organochlorines (OCs). The first area is contiguous with the open water of Apalachee Bay and receives significant fresh water inflow. The second is a long, narrow bay with a north-facing mouth adjacent to the mainland and little fresh water inflow. Samples were analyzed for a panel of 28 OCs including several insecticides and metabolites as well as hexaxhlorobenzene and total …

Assessing The Effectiveness Of Antiretroviral Adherence Interventions: Using Marginal Structural Models To Replicate The Findings Of Randomized Controlled Trials., Maya L. Petersen, Yue Wang, Mark J. Van Der Laan, David R. Bangsberg

Maya Petersen

Randomized controlled trials of interventions to improve adherence to antiretroviral medications are not always feasible. Marginal Structural Models (MSM) are a statistical methodology that aims to replicate the findings of randomized controlled trials using observational data. Under the assumption of no unmeasured confounders, three MSM estimators are available to estimate the causal effect of an intervention. Two of these estimators, G-computation and Inverse Probability of Treatment Weighted, can be implemented using standard software. G-computation relies on fitting a multivariable regression of adherence on the intervention and confounders. Thus, it is related to the standard multivariable regression approach to estimating causal …

Modeling An Outbreak Of Anthrax, Ron Brookmeyer

Ron Brookmeyer

Introduction

On October 2, 2001 a sixty-three-year-old Florida man who worked as a photo editor at a media publishing company was admitted to an emergency department complaining of nausea, vomiting, and fever. His symptoms began four days earlier on a recreational trip to North Carolina. The man died shortly thereafter. An astute clinician quickly made the surprising diagnosis of inhalational anthrax, which is a serious and deadly disease. The diagnosis was surprising because inhalational anthrax is extremely rare; only 18 cases were reported in the United States between 1900 and 1978. Public health officials at first believed that the Florida …

Personal Health Records: The People's Choice?, Lisa Sprague

National Health Policy Forum

Information technology (IT), especially in the form of an electronic health record (EHR), is touted by many as a key component of meaningful improvement in health care delivery and outcomes. A personal health record (PHR) may be an element of an EHR or a stand-alone record. Proponents of PHRs see them as tools that will improve consumers’ ability to manage their care and will also enlist consumers as advocates for widespread health IT adoption. This issue brief explores what a PHR is, the extent of demand for it, issues that need to be resolved before such records can be expected …

Job Applicants’ Testing And Organizational Perceptions: The Effects Of Test Information And Attitude Strength, Andrew L. Noon

Department of Psychology: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This quasi-experimental study examined job applicants’ organizational perceptions prior to and immediately after completing pre-employment assessments, and after the hiring decision was announced. Participants were actual applicants (N = 262) for non-exempt level data processing positions at a medium-size Midwestern insurance company. As part of the selection process, applicants completed both a cognitive ability test and a personality inventory. Information about the tests was used as a manipulation. Approximately half of the participants received information prior to completing the assessments that explained the tests’ content, job relatedness, and validity, and a description of the testing process, while the other …

Value-Based Coverage Policy In The United States And The United Kingdom: Different Paths To A Common Goal, Wilhelmine Miller

National Health Policy Forum

This background paper traces the development within American health care of two interrelated trends and activities: an evidence-based approach to medical practice and the critical evaluation of new technologies with respect to their costs and effectiveness. Over the past 35 years each of these developments has increasingly shaped the coverage decisions of public and private health insurers, and their importance for coverage policy is certain to grow. The paper also contrasts the different approaches to such “evidence-” or “value-based” coverage policy in the mixed public and private U.S. health care enterprise with the approach taken in Great Britain’s single-payer National …

The Diagnosis Of Adrenal Insufficiency In The Critically Ill Patient: Does It Really Matter?, Paul E. Marik

Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine Faculty Papers

No abstract provided.

Spatio-Temporal Analysis Of Areal Data And Discovery Of Neighborhood Relationships In Conditionally Autoregressive Models, Subharup Guha, Louise Ryan

Harvard University Biostatistics Working Paper Series

No abstract provided.

Semiparametric Regression Of Multi-Dimensional Genetic Pathway Data: Least Squares Kernel Machines And Linear Mixed Models, Dawei Liu, Xihong Lin, Debashis Ghosh

Harvard University Biostatistics Working Paper Series

No abstract provided.

Medicare And Mental Health: The Fundamentals, Christopher Loftis, Eileen Salinsky

National Health Policy Forum

This background paper provides a review of mental health coverage in the Medicare program. It examines the prevalence of mental disorders among Medicare beneficiaries, treatment available through Medicare, and the cost of such treatment. A brief summary of relevant policy issues is provided, including Medicare’s outpatient mental health limitation and the potential effect of the prescription drug benefit on the provision of mental health services.

Nucleolin Is Required For Rna Polymerase I Transcription In Vivo, Brendan Rickards, S. Flint, Michael D. Cole, Gary Leroy

Dartmouth Scholarship

Eukaryotic genomes are packaged with histones and accessory proteins in the form of chromatin. RNA polymerases and their accessory proteins are sufficient for transcription of naked DNA, but not of chromatin, templates in vitro. In this study, we purified and identified nucleolin as a protein that allows RNA polymerase II to transcribe nucleosomal templates in vitro. As immunofluorescence confirmed that nucleolin localizes primarily to nucleoli with RNA polymerase I, we demonstrated that nucleolin allows RNA polymerase I transcription of chromatin templates in vitro. The results of chromatin immunoprecipitation experiments established that nucleolin is associated with chromatin containing rRNA genes transcribed …

The Nevada Institute For Children’S Research And Policy: Final Report, The Nevada Institute For Children’S Research And Policy

Nevada Institute for Children's Research and Policy Reports

On November 16, 2005, the Legislative Commission unanimously voted to approve hiring the Nevada Institute for Children’s Research and Policy (NICRP), School of Public Health, UNLV to study and evaluate governmental entities and private facilities that have physical custody of children pursuant to a court order and other public entities that provide for the care and supervision of children in the State of Nevada. The study included three primary components. The first component involved an analysis of the guidelines, protocols, policies and procedures of these entities/facilities which affect the health, safety, welfare, treatment and civil or other rights of children …

Donor Tricuspid Annuloplasty During Orthotopic Heart Transplantation: Long-Term Results Of A Prospective Controlled Study, Valluvan Jeevanandum, Hyde Russell, Paul Mather, Satoshi Furukawa, Allen Anderson, Jaishankar Raman

Department of Medicine Faculty Papers

Background: Development of tricuspid regurgitation after orthotopic heart transplantation can cause heart failure along with renal and hepatic impairment and portends a poor prognosis. If tricuspid regurgitation causes significant symptoms, tricuspid valve repair or replacement is often required. This study was designed to study the effects of prophylactic tricuspid valve annuloplasty (TVA) during orthotopic heart transplantation on long-term survival, renal function, and amount of tricuspid regurgitation.

Methods: Between April 1997 and March 1998, 60 patients (aged 18 to 70 years; 22 female) randomly received either standard bicaval orthotopic heart transplantation (group STD; n = 30) or bicaval orthotopic …

Epsdt: Medicaid's Critical But Controversial Benefits Program For Children, Christie Provost Peters

National Health Policy Forum

The Early and Periodic Screening, Diagnosis and Treatment (EPSDT) program under Medicaid provides the most comprehensive set of health benefits for children and adolescents in the public or private sector. A cornerstone of early childhood preventive and treatment services in the nation’s health care “safety net,” the EPSDT program serves nearly 30 million low-income children, including children with disabilities and special needs. Over the years, states have expressed frustration with the administrative burdens of EPSDT requirements. Rising Medicaid costs have put all Medicaid benefits, including the EPSDT program, in the budgetary crosshairs. This issue brief reviews the fundamental characteristics of …

Ada News - 11/20/2006, American Dental Association, Publishing Division

ADA News

Established in 1970 as the official newspaper of the American Dental Association, the ADA News serves practicing dentists and others allied to the dental profession in the U.S. and internationally. It is the No. 1 source of news and information about the many benefits and services the ADA delivers to members daily as well as timely information on scientific, social, political and economic developments affecting dentistry and health care.