Public Health Commons^™

On Corrected Score Approach For Proportional Hazards Model With Covariate Measurement Error, Xiao Song, Yijian Huang

UW Biostatistics Working Paper Series

In the presence of covariate measurement error with the proportional hazards model, several functional modeling methods have been proposed. These include the conditional score estimator (Tsiatis and Davidian, 2001), the parametric correction estimator (Nakamura, 1992) and the nonparametric correction estimator (Huang and Wang, 2000, 2003) in the order of weaker assumptions on the error. Although they are all consistent, each suffers from potential difficulties with small samples and substantial measurement error. In this article, upon noting that the conditional score and parametric correction estimators are asymptotically equivalent in the case of normal error, we investigate their relative finite sample performance …

Religion And Crime: A Study Of Inmates In State And Federal Prisons In The United States., Dhanalakshmi Thirumalai

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Persistent high levels of crime in this country have provided support for the need for public programs that help in reducing crime rates through effective interventions. Spirituality and religion are considered to play a major part in determining an individual's attitude towards committing a crime. This study analyzed if inmates in State and Federal prisons in the US are involved in prison religious activities and personal prayers in order to determine if criminality (measured by offense type) of inmates affects their participation in religious activities. Based on logistic regression analysis, gender, race, and marital status of inmates were found to …

International Art Therapy Program Development: An Exploratory Cultural Encounter In Ayacucho, Peru, Haley Johnstone

EVMS School of Health Professions Theses & Dissertations

Humanitarian aid organizations, both domestic and international, provide health care, mental health services, education, and community development for traumatized children worldwide living in regions affected by political violence. Sparse information exists regarding the role of an art therapist within these organizations. The profession of art therapy lacks research specific to the benefits of intervention and program development within the context of an international humanitarian aid team. This thesis reviews the ethnographic research of an art therapy graduate student who explored the opportunities for art therapy within such a team.

Cultural competency was an essential component of the researcher’s success while …

Investigation And Calculation Of Dose Coefficients For Radionuclides Produced In A Spallation Neutron Source Using The Ensdf And Nubase Nuclear Databases, Yayun Song

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Dose coefficients are useful for risk assessment during the design and siting of accelerator-driven nuclear facilities including the Spallation Neutron Source. There are seventy-two radionuclides with half-lives equal to or greater than one minute that will be produced by the spallation of a mercury target for which no published dose coefficients exist. Out of these seventy-two, twenty-four currently have conflicting published nuclear data in the Evaluated Nuclear Structure Data Files (ENSDF) and the NUBASE data files. In this research these twenty-four radionuclides have been studied. Because of missing ENSDF records, internal and external dose coefficients were determined for only six …

Santé Respiratoire Des Travailleurs Et Qualité De L’Air Des Tourbières Du Québec Possédant Des Systèmes De Dépoussiérage, Caroline Duchaine, Yvon Cormier, Anne Mériaux, Pascal Pageau, Madeleine Chabot, Évelyne Israël-Assayag, Nicole Goyer, Yves Cloutier, Louis Lazure

Rapports de recherche scientifique

Certains problèmes de santé reliés à la manipulation de la tourbe sont bien connus. On parle de maladie reliée à la présence de Sporothrix schenckii. La présence de Mycobacterium xenopi et M. fortuitum pourrait conduire à des infections aux reins et M.chelonae et M. gordonae pourraient être associées à l’alvéolite allergique. Si ces problèmes inhérents à la manipulation de la tourbe sont connus, aucune étude ne fait état de la microflore de l’air des tourbières et de l’exposition des travailleurs aux différents contaminants aériens comme les poussières organiques, les moisissures, bactéries, et autres produits pouvant causer des …

Influenza Vaccination Coverage Among Adults With Asthma: Findings From The 2000 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, Earl S. Ford, Seymour G. Williams, David M. Mannino, Stephen C. Redd

United States Public Health Resources

The prevalence of asthma has increased substantially in the United States since 1980 (1). The primary clinical and public health strategy to reduce the burden of asthma is to prevent exacerbation of the disease, of which upper and lower respiratory tract infections are a major cause (2–5). One such infection—influenza— and its complications are potentially preventable with annual vaccination, which is a safe and effective method (6,7), including among persons with asthma (8). Because persons with asthma are at increased risk of complications from influenza, they are advised to receive annual influenza vaccinations (9), unless there are contraindications.
Little is …

Evaluating Markers For Selecting A Patient's Treatment, Xiao Song, Margaret S. Pepe

UW Biostatistics Working Paper Series

Selecting the best treatment for a patient's disease may be facilitated by evaluating clinical characteristics or biomarker measurements at diagnosis. We consider how to evaluate the potential of such measurements to impact on treatment selection algorithms. For example, magnetic resonance neurographic imaging is potentially useful for deciding whether a patient should be treated surgically for carpal tunnel syndrome or if he/she should receive less invasive conservative therapy. We propose a graphical display, the selection impact (SI) curve, that shows the population response rate as a function of treatment selection criteria based on the marker. The curve can be useful for …

Veterans' Health Care: Balancing Resources And Responsibilities, Lisa Sprague

National Health Policy Forum

This paper looks at the health care benefits and services administered by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. It examines management strategies adopted within the department to allocate resources, structure benefits, and improve quality. Some recommendations made by the General Accounting Office and the President’s Task Force to Improve Health Care Delivery for Our Nation’s Veterans are reviewed, in particular the emphasis of the latter on increased collaboration with the Department of Defense. Long-term proposals to balance service commitments and financing also are considered.

Three Steps Forward, Two Steps Back: Tobacco Policy Making In Nebraska, Andrew Wessel, Jennifer Ibrahim, Stanton Glantz

United States Public Health Resources

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

• In 2002, 22.7% of Nebraskans over the age of 18 were current smokers, accounting for

approximately 389,000 smokers.

• Since 1995, the prevalence of adult tobacco use in Nebraska has remained about 1 percentage

point below the national average, but per capita tobacco consumption in Nebraska has been falling

more slowly than the Unites States as whole.

• The tobacco industry has directly been a major political force in Nebraska through lobbying and

campaign contributions. The tobacco industry spent over $1,027,000 on lobbying from 1997-2002.

The tobacco industry made direct campaign contributions to the members of the …

Cost Analysis Of The Built Environment: The Case Of Bike And Pedestrian Trials In Lincoln, Neb, Guijing Wang, Caroline A. Macera, Barbara Scudder-Soucie, Tom Schmid, Michael Pratt, David Buchner, Gregory Heath

United States Public Health Resources

We estimated the annual cost of bike and pedestrian trails in Lincoln, Neb, using construction and maintenance costs provided by the Department of Parks and Recreation of Nebraska. We obtained the number of users of 5 trails from a 1998 census report. The annual construction cost of each trail was calculated by using 3%, 5%, and 10% discount rates for a period of useful life of 10, 30, and 50 years. The average cost per mile and per user was calculated.
Trail length averaged 3.6 miles (range=1.6–4.6 miles). Annual cost in 2002 dollars ranged from $25 762 to $248479 (mean=$124927; …

Monitoring Physical Activity: Uses And Measurement Issues With Automated Counters, Michelle L. Granner, Patricia A. Sharpe

Faculty Publications

Background: Promotion of physical activity is a public health priority, and environmental factors influence physical activity behavior. Valid and reliable automated measurement tools of physical activity for assessment and evaluation within public settings are needed. Methods: Searches of the research literature and governmental reports from physical activity, transportation, and recreation fields were conducted to identify methods of automated counting and validation studies. The article provides a summary of (a) current methods and uses of automated counters, (b) information about validity and reliability where available, (c) strengths and limitations of each methods, and (d) measurement issues. Results: Existing automated counting technology …

State Efforts To Expand Health Coverage: One Bite At A Time, Christopher Stream

Public Policy and Leadership Faculty Research

For more than twenty years, health scholars and advocates have warned us about the lack of adequate health coverage among a growing number of Americans. Health insurance premiums are rising. Many employers, especially small employers who employ over half of the country’s workforce, and individuals are seeing premium increases of 30, 40, and even 50 percent. Not surprisingly, America’s uninsured population is rising— to more than 41 million people. States are feeling the budget crunch as the economy sags and more and more people turn to state Medicaid and other public health care systems. This all means that state policy …

The Florida Legislature’S Physical Activity And Nutrition Bills And Florida’S Youth: A Health Professional’S Call To Action

Florida Public Health Review

No abstract provided.

A Brief Interview With Vice Admiral Richard H. Carmona, Md, Mph, Facs Surgeon General Of The United States

Florida Public Health Review

No abstract provided.

Examination Of Impact Of Polk County Florida’S Safe And Drug Free Schools Program

Florida Public Health Review

No abstract provided.

Minority Youth: “Big Tobacco’S” 21st Century Marketing Targets

Florida Public Health Review

No abstract provided.

Perceptions Of Access To U.S. Health Care Of Haitian Immigrants In South Florida

Florida Public Health Review

No abstract provided.

School Health Is Public Health

Florida Public Health Review

No abstract provided.

An Overview And Evaluation Of Cultural Competence Training For Public Health Professionals

Florida Public Health Review

No abstract provided.

Use Of Hospitals, Physician Visits, And Hospice Care During Last Six Months Of Life Among Cohorts Loyal To Highly Respected Hospitals In The United States, J. E. Wennberg, Elliot S. Fisher, Therese A. Stukel, Jonathan S. Skinner

Dartmouth Scholarship

Objective: To evaluate the use of healthcare resources during the last six months of life among patients of US hospitals with strong reputations for high quality care in managing chronic illness.

Causal Inference In Hybrid Intervention Trials Involving Treatment Choice, Qi Long, Rod Little, Xihong Lin

The University of Michigan Department of Biostatistics Working Paper Series

Randomized allocation of treatments is a cornerstone of experimental design, but has drawbacks when a limited set of individuals are willing to be randomized, or the act of randomization undermines the success of the treatment. Choice-based experimental designs allow a subset of the participants to choose their treatments. We discuss here causal inferences for experimental designs where some participants are randomly allocated to treatments and others receive their treatment preference. This paper was motivated by the “Women Take Pride” (WTP) study (Janevic et al., 2001), a doubly randomized preference trail (DRPT) to assess behavioral interventions for women with heart disease. …

Necessary But Not Sufficient? Physician Volunteerism And The Health Care Safety Net, Eileen Salinsky

National Health Policy Forum

This paper examines the role of physician-sponsored charity care in meeting the health care needs of the uninsured. The paper provides an overview of current charity care levels by medical specialties and geographic regions, discusses limitations in available data, and describes the settings in which charity care is provided. The paper also summarizes the factors that motivate physicians to provide volunteer services, as well as the barriers that hinder volunteer activities, including malpractice insurance concerns. Also discussed are a range of public policies, both existing and considered, that support volunteer activities, with a particular emphasis on the expansion of Federal …

Health Educators In Florida’S County Public Health Departments: Frequency Of And Perceived Confidence In Performing Entry-Level Competencies, Michele Johnson Moore

Florida Public Health Review

No abstract provided.

A Bayesian Hierarchical Approach To Multirater Correlated Roc Analysis, Tim Johnson, Valen Johnson

The University of Michigan Department of Biostatistics Working Paper Series

In a common ROC study design, several readers are asked to rate diagnostics of the same cases processed under different modalities. We describe a Bayesian hierarchical model that facilitates the analysis of this study design by explicitly modeling the three sources of variation inherent to it. In so doing, we achieve substantial reductions in the posterior uncertainty associated with estimates of the differences in areas under the estimated ROC curves and corresponding reductions in the mean squared error (MSE) of these estimates. Based on simulation studies, both the widths of confidence intervals and MSE of estimates of differences in the …

Confronting The Impending Public Health Workforce Crisis In America: Perspectives From Academia And Public Health Practice.

Florida Public Health Review

No abstract provided.

Construction Laborer Dies From Heat Stroke At End Of Workday, Kentucky Injury Prevention And Research Center

Fatality Case Reports--Other

On June 27, 2003, a 41-year-old, male laborer died from heat stroke one day after being taken to the hospital. The laborer was working on an addition to a factory sawing boards to make concrete forms. He worked until 5:00 pm that day and was in the parking lot on his way to his vehicle when he apparently collapsed beside his vehicle. A worker on the second shift at the factory was taking scrap material outside to a dumpster when he found the laborer on the ground. The factory worker returned to the plant and told his supervisor there was …

Highway Construction Worker Dies When Struck By Semi-Tractor Trailer, Kentucky Injury Prevention And Research Center

Fatality Case Reports--Motor Vehicle

At approximately 8:30 am on April 16, 2003, a 48-year-old male (decedent) highway construction laborer working in an interstate highway median, died when he was struck by an out-of-control double trailer (a semi-truck pulling two trailers). The laborer was speaking with the job foreman and another laborer in the median next to a grading machine. As the decedent looked toward the traffic, he saw a double trailer traveling on the right-hand shoulder swerve into the left-hand lane and drive into the median where all three men were standing. He told the other two to get out of the way as …

28-Year-Old Man Dies After Falling With Lift, Kentucky Injury Prevention And Research Center

Fatality Case Reports--Falls

On June 27, 2003, a 28-year-old male sound technician died due to injuries received after falling approximately 50 feet from a lift. Three men (one chief sound engineer and two sound technicians) were sent to repair a sound system in a school gymnasium. Upon arriving and assessing the situation, the three diagnosed that a particular speaker, located in the rafters, should be removed from its location. Using a 30-year-old telescoping, self-leveling lift belonging to the school, the chief engineer used controls located at the base of the lift, to hoist the two sound technicians to the speaker in the rafter. …

Self-Reported Memory Symptoms With Coronary Artery Disease: A Prospective Of Cabg Patients And Nonsurgical Controls, Ola A. Selnes, Maura A. Grega, Louis M. Borowicz, Jr., Sarah Barry, Scott L. Zeger, Guy M. Mckhann

Johns Hopkins University, Dept. of Biostatistics Working Papers

Background. Subjective memory complaints are common after coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG), but previous studies have concluded that such symptoms are more closely associated with depressed mood than objective cognitive dysfunction. We compared the incidence of self-reported memory symptoms at 3 and 12 months after CABG with that of a control group of patients with comparable risk factors for coronary artery disease but without surgery.

Methods. Patients undergoing CABG (n = 140) and a demographically similar nonsurgical control group with coronary artery disease (n = 92) were followed prospectively at 3 and 12 months. At each follow-up time, participants were …

Fatal Tractor Overturns: Don't Let Them Roll Over You!, Kentucky Injury Prevention And Research Center

Kentucky Haz Alerts--Tractors/Logging

To prevent tractor injuries:

• All tractors should be equipped with a Roll Over Protective Structure (ROPS) and a seat belt.
• Tractors should be equipped with front-end counterweights and tractor wheels
• should be weighted to increase stability.
• Community farm safety training with safe operating procedures and hazard identification should be offered to novice or limited- experience operators.