With Windows 8.1 Professional and OS X 10.9 Mavericks both now shipping, how do the two flagship PC operating systems compare? Does Windows 8.1 fix enough of Windows 8's usability flaws to be worth adoption? Does Mavericks add enough value to get your attention?
Windows 8.1 lets users avoid most of the Windows 8 experience, so they can return to a Windows 7-like state of bliss, whereas Mavericks simply makes the Mac that much easier to use, especially if you work with iPads and iPhones, too. In short, the two updates keep the relative balance between Windows and OS X the same. Windows 8.1 does reduce PC users' frustration enough that they may be less likely to switch to a different OS like OS X, but it does so by retreating into Windows 7, making Windows feel more dated than ever.
My colleague Woody Leonhard has reviewed the final version of Windows 8.1, and I encourage you to read his take to understand the nuances of Microsoft's tablet/desktop hybrid OS. I've detailed the best new capabilities in OS X Mavericks, which I also urge you to check out. Here, I highlight the key differences, strengths, and weaknesses of the two OSes, both of which I've been using since their first betas were released, organized by the InfoWorld Test Center's key scoring categories for desktop operating systems.
Scores: Windows 8.1: 7 OS X Mavericks: 9
Apple defined the graphical user interface as we know it today, and despite nearly 30 years of changes, the core metaphors remain unchanged. That consistency makes it easy to use each new version of OS X, and Mavericks is no exception.
Yet the OS has expanded to support touch gestures in a very natural way, via touch mice and touchpads. Also, Apple's slew of helper utilities -- such as the Quick Look preview facility, the Notification Center, the embedded sharing capabilities, and the Spotlight search tool -- do what Apple does best: offer sophisticated capabilities that users can discover as needed, rather than face a steep learning curve to get started. The Dock and the persistent menu bar also simplify app access, while the full-screen mode introduced in OS X Lion lets users stay focused when they want to be, yet have quick access to the rest of the OS as desired.
Mavericks makes a few small enhancements to that UI: Finder windows now support tabs, like a browser, which reduces screen clutter and adopts a widely used organizing principle. You can also tag files with your own keywords, to aid in searches. Neither requires you to relearn anything fundamental. And thanks to the inclusion of iOS's Maps and iBooks app, using the two platforms is even easier -- especially with the new ability to send driving directions from Maps straight to your iOS device and the new ability in Calendar to estimate driving times to your appointments.
However, OS X Mavericks has a few UI flaws that undercut its superb ease-of-use. Apple has been monkeying with its application file services since OS X Lion, so there are now three distinct UIs and services for saving files: one for traditional apps, one for Versions-enabled apps, and one for iCloud Documents-compatible apps. It's confusing. OS X Mavericks doesn't do anything to rationalize these differences.
Also, though Apple encourages broad usage of the iCloud service, it doesn't work with Apple's Mail program. Adding or saving attachments becomes a rigmarole as you transfer the files from iCloud to your Mac's local drive or vice versa. (iCloud is available only in apps obtained from the Mac App Store, so most Mac apps can't use it.) SkyDrive's deeper integration allows for much more straightforward use, though many IT managers won't like that fact. To manage access to SkyDrive, IT can go with a separate SkyDrive Pro client available for Windows 8.1.
While most everyone this week has been yawning at the release of new Surface Pro tablets, over in another corner Microsoft has been hard at work on getting new Windows Azure features out the door.
The list of this week's updates to Azure is wide-ranging, although some of it will be familiar to anyone who's followed the news of what Redmond's been planning for Azure.
The general availability of Windows Azure Backup As the name implies, this uses Azure's blob storage to provide cloud-based backup and restore for Windows Server or for System Center Data Protection Manager. In a nod to those uneasy about cloud storage, Microsoft has affirmed that not only is data encrypted before transmission, but the user -- not Microsoft -- keeps the encryption key.
Active Directory Microsoft's plans for Active Directory in Azure have been getting more ambitious of late, with its most recent big add being single sign-on for all the SaaS offerings integrated into Azure, as well as a single place to access those apps if you're an end-user. Among the less-publicized additions this time around: auditing reports that include things like automatically flagging suspicious log-in behaviors (such as logging in from multiple locations at once) and sign-in integration within Visual Studio.
Windows Azure SDK 2.2 Speaking of Visual Studio, the 2013 version just got support for the new revision of the Windows Azure SDK, version 2.2. Also among the features in 2.2 is Remote Debugging Cloud Services, which lets you plug Visual Studio into a debugger running in Azure as if you were debugging an application locally. Many of the other additions to Azure's development features -- for example, the PowerShell cmdlets -- have been in roughly the same vein, that of closing the gap between what's done in the cloud and what's done locally.
The public preview of Hyper-V Recovery Manager This new feature allows System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2012 SP1 and R2 private clouds to be replicated to and recovered from a secondary location. Again, in another nod to those paranoid about the cloud, application data is kept local and everything to, from, and in Azure is encrypted.
From the outside these may seem like little pieces, but they're adding up. InfoWorld's Eric Knorr has described Microsoft as "the sleeping giant of the cloud," with "the resources to crush it." Microsoft is in the middle of a difficult but fruitful transition away from the low-hanging fruit of commodity computing and toward the high-margin, far-reaching innovations possible as a services company.
Actually, Microsoft has had a decently large slice of its pie coming from most everything but the Windows division for some time now. Back in 2012, ZDNet's Ed Bott noted how large chunks of Microsoft's revenue were not from Windows at all, but from the company's business division, the entertainment and devices division (read: Xbox), and the server division. It wouldn't be surprising at all if from now on the biggest news out of Redmond had nothing to do with Windows per se, and everything to do with Azure.
NEW YORK (AP) — The end of the year looks busy for Carrie Underwood, and she couldn't be happier.
The six-time Grammy-winning singer will host the Country Music Association Awards for the sixth time. You can see her singing the opening on NBC's "Sunday Night Football." And for one night in December, she'll star in a live television version of "The Sound of Music."
The 30-year-old star told the Associated Press on the red carpet Tuesday night at the TJ Martell Foundation gala, where she was one of the night's honorees, that she nervous doing something she's never done before. But then she realized, "None of us have. This is a live show on TV. So this is definitely a challenge for all of us."
She said the live singing and acting was like "going to a Broadway show, but you're in your living room."
"The Sound of Music" airs Dec. 5 on NBC with Underwood playing Maria alongside "True Blood" vampire Stephen Moyer. He portrays Captain von Trapp. Broadway veterans — and Tony winners — Audra McDonald, Laura Benanti and Christian Borle round out the cast as Mother Abbess, Elsa and Max.
While the Nashville, Tenn.-based Underwood is no stranger to performing before millions of people on live television — she won the fourth season of "American Idol" — she felt she needed more preparation, so she showed up in New York three weeks early.
"I wanted to be here and have all my lines memorized and everything and be ready for it. It's been really wonderful," Underwood said. "Audra and Laura are incredible. Stephen's great. It's nice to be surrounded by that much talent."
Before doing that show, the multiplatinum-selling artist returns to her hosting duties on the CMAs. She's nominated for three awards, including album of the year and song of the year. While she and co-host Brad Paisley have it down to a science, she doesn't see the experience as old hat.
"You never know what's going to happen with us hosting," Underwood joked.
She added: "I think being nominated — especially when hosting the CMAs — you just never know."
The CMAs take place Nov. 6 in Nashville.
Underwood also spoke about recording the opening number this season for "Sunday Night Football." She claims doing it was a no-brainer.
"It's a lot of fun. I grew up watching football. I'm from Oklahoma, it's what we do," she said with a big smile.
The conversation then turned to hockey and her husband Mike Fisher's team, the Nashville Predators.
"They got off to a little bit of rocky start, but definitely getting some momentum. I feel like my husband right now. I know what he feels like now. I feel there's some really great, new young talent," Underwood said.
And what about the team's star center?
"My hubby, he's been out for the past couple of games with a foot fracture thing. But he'll be back on the ice, ASAP. I hope he does, because that's the only way I get to see him, other than iChat."
_____
Follow John Carucci at —http://www.twitter.com/jacarucci
SAP is planning to rely heavily on HTML5 and open standards within its products for building mobile applications, and is embracing the concept of BYOT (bring your own tools) in order to draw interest from developers.
Version 3.0 of SAP Mobile Platform, which was announced Tuesday during the Tech Ed conference in Las Vegas, will combine SAP's NetWeaver Gateway, Sybase Mobiliser and Syclo Agentry products "to meet current and future mobile app use cases," according to the announcement.
SAP's mobility tools will support open-source standards such as OSGi, OData and Apache Cordova. Developers can also expect "extensive use of HTML5," SAP said.
Under the BYOT approach, developers can use their desired tools alongside those from SAP's platform. SAP is also planning to offer a cloud version of the mobile platform, according to the announcement.
The company announced updates to its Mobile Secure product portfolio on Tuesday as well.
An upcoming cloud-based version of SAP Mobile App Protection will help companies apply "fine-grained" security to applications running on iOS and Android devices, SAP said. The company has also upgraded its Mobile Documents product, adding iPhone and Android support, and has created a new secure mobile browser.
SAP gained a set of mobility products through the 2010 acquisition of Sybase.
It has been emphasizing mobile-friendly software development heavily of late, and earlier this year launched Fiori, a set of lightweight mobile applications that tie into its core Business Suite ERP (enterprise resource planning) system.
The Mobile Platform 3.0 release also represents a fresh start of sorts for SAP, according to one observer.
"When SAP assumed Sybase's mobile assets, they basically did not have a complete or stable product," said analyst Ray Wang of Constellation Research. "This new release is a major overhaul which allows them to write once, deploy everywhere."
SAP did make tweaks to the Sybase technology as part of the 3.0 upgrade, said executive board member Vishal Sikka, who heads all development, during a press conference on Tuesday at Tech Ed.
SAP has also had some time to rethink what is truly important for mobile developers, Wang added.
"Embedded security, mobile apps stores, and community are key to their potential success this time around," he said. "The challenge will be the price points as IBM is also aggressively competing in this space."
Chris Kanaracus covers enterprise software and general technology breaking news for The IDG News Service. Chris' email address is Chris_Kanaracus@idg.com
Contact: Jenny Ryan jenny.ryan@nrcresearchpress.com Canadian Science Publishing (NRC Research Press)
Since antibodies first attained prominence as research reagents in modern biological science labs, researchers have been perplexed as to why one production lot can differ significantly from the next, in terms of performance. Poor antibody performance has caused the loss of countless hours of research, to say nothing of the mental anguish of the researchers themselves. An antigen is a substance that stimulates the production of antibodies.
Now that antibodies are being widely exploited for clinical purposes, the problem of poor antibody performance goes beyond inconvenience to researchers and may threaten patients in a number of ways, including misdiagnosis of disease by pathologists using antibodies to characterize tissue biopsies; disposal of antibody production lots by manufacturers because of the apparent lack of potency; and misinterpretation of research results leading to incorrect conclusions about mechanisms of action for some diseases, which can be costly to pharmaceutical companies pursuing the wrong leads during drug development.
A new article just published in the journal Biochemistry and Cell Biology titled: "Hitchhiker antigens: Inconsistent ChIP results, questionable immunohistology data, and poor antibody performance may have a common factor" describes the problem. It claims that antibodies being manufactured today in large biological systems, whether it is a bioreactor filled with mammalian cells or a living organism, such as a rabbit or a goat, may often have a significant proportion of the lot "contaminated" with the very antigens they are designed to target. The antigens contaminating the antibodies can be thought of as "hitchhikers". This is only a problem if the antibody is designed to target a cellular protein or structure that is already present in the biological system in which it is being made, but such antibodies are increasingly common and are used for research and in medicine.
In this article, the author, Dr. Missag Parseghian, who develops clinical antibodies at Rubicon Biotechnology, introduces readers to a recent survey by the ENCODE consortium of commercial histone-targeting antibodies and how their data highlights the detrimental effects of hitchhiker antigens. His observations may have researchers thinking about the purity of the commercial antibodies sitting in their lab refrigerators. The problem, he says, may be prevalent in a wide array of research areas, not just the areas of chromatin, auto-immune and histone research highlighted here.
"I have been working with antibodies for over 25 years, both as a consumer who uses them in my research and as a scientist working for companies that manufacture them as therapeutics, and what has always struck me about antibodies is the variation in their performance from one lot to the next. Especially when working with antibodies generated from a small research lab and later from a commercial supplier," explained Dr. Parseghian. "Not that one or the other group produces a superior product, rather the same antibody produced by two different groups can show tremendous variation. Understanding and eliminating this variation is critical for successful development of antibody-based biologic agents as drugs."
###
The article is published online today in Biochemistry and Cell Biology.
Direct link to article: http://www.nrcresearchpress.com/doi/abs/10.1139/bcb-2013-0059
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The hitchhiker antigen: Cause for concern?
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
23-Oct-2013
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Contact: Jenny Ryan jenny.ryan@nrcresearchpress.com Canadian Science Publishing (NRC Research Press)
Since antibodies first attained prominence as research reagents in modern biological science labs, researchers have been perplexed as to why one production lot can differ significantly from the next, in terms of performance. Poor antibody performance has caused the loss of countless hours of research, to say nothing of the mental anguish of the researchers themselves. An antigen is a substance that stimulates the production of antibodies.
Now that antibodies are being widely exploited for clinical purposes, the problem of poor antibody performance goes beyond inconvenience to researchers and may threaten patients in a number of ways, including misdiagnosis of disease by pathologists using antibodies to characterize tissue biopsies; disposal of antibody production lots by manufacturers because of the apparent lack of potency; and misinterpretation of research results leading to incorrect conclusions about mechanisms of action for some diseases, which can be costly to pharmaceutical companies pursuing the wrong leads during drug development.
A new article just published in the journal Biochemistry and Cell Biology titled: "Hitchhiker antigens: Inconsistent ChIP results, questionable immunohistology data, and poor antibody performance may have a common factor" describes the problem. It claims that antibodies being manufactured today in large biological systems, whether it is a bioreactor filled with mammalian cells or a living organism, such as a rabbit or a goat, may often have a significant proportion of the lot "contaminated" with the very antigens they are designed to target. The antigens contaminating the antibodies can be thought of as "hitchhikers". This is only a problem if the antibody is designed to target a cellular protein or structure that is already present in the biological system in which it is being made, but such antibodies are increasingly common and are used for research and in medicine.
In this article, the author, Dr. Missag Parseghian, who develops clinical antibodies at Rubicon Biotechnology, introduces readers to a recent survey by the ENCODE consortium of commercial histone-targeting antibodies and how their data highlights the detrimental effects of hitchhiker antigens. His observations may have researchers thinking about the purity of the commercial antibodies sitting in their lab refrigerators. The problem, he says, may be prevalent in a wide array of research areas, not just the areas of chromatin, auto-immune and histone research highlighted here.
"I have been working with antibodies for over 25 years, both as a consumer who uses them in my research and as a scientist working for companies that manufacture them as therapeutics, and what has always struck me about antibodies is the variation in their performance from one lot to the next. Especially when working with antibodies generated from a small research lab and later from a commercial supplier," explained Dr. Parseghian. "Not that one or the other group produces a superior product, rather the same antibody produced by two different groups can show tremendous variation. Understanding and eliminating this variation is critical for successful development of antibody-based biologic agents as drugs."
###
The article is published online today in Biochemistry and Cell Biology.
Direct link to article: http://www.nrcresearchpress.com/doi/abs/10.1139/bcb-2013-0059
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
When Gawker Media launched Jezebel in May 2007, it was the first big bid at reimagining popular women’s media for an online audience. Now, Jezebel is going analog. Released today, The Book of Jezebel: An Illustrated Encyclopedia of Lady Things, edited by Jezebel’s founding editor Anna Holmes with contributions from a group of female writers, include Slate contributors Jessica Grose, Amanda Marcotte, and yours truly, is both an earnest celebration of the historical and pop cultural figures that have shaped women’s lives in the 21st century and a compendium of elaborate menstruation jokes. (I wrote many of them.) Critics are divided on how seriously to take the thing: Fresh Air’s Maureen Corrigan found it a “jolly feminist cultural commentary”; the Daily Caller’s Mark Judge counters that “the rage of the Jezebels is indicative of a serious cultural problem that is potentially fatal for the United States.” (Spoiler alert: The cultural problem is daddy issues). I am biased and think it’s great.
I spoke with Anna about translating a blog to a dead-tree medium, the Jezebel definition of cunnilingus, and how to compete with other women without undermining women in general.
Amanda Hess: Now that the book has come out, people keep asking me which entries I wrote, and I honestly do not remember. It’s all a blur of badass historical ladies and uterus jokes at this point.
Anna Holmes: You’ve just described my life.
Hess: The book is a part of a trend in publishing that takes a Web outlet and reimagines it as a print product. As someone who writes primarily on the Internet, I’m of two minds about that: On the one hand, the immediacy and community provided by writing online can be really special, but there’s also a lot of great writing and argumentation that happens online that just quietly disappears. Is that why you’ve turned the website into a book?
Holmes: I don’t know that the trend toward turning Web products into books is that new—we’ve seen peoples Twitter feeds effectively spun into books. But I had some hesitation about doing it with this site, because I don’t think there are many books that have succeeded in translating Web content to print form.
Way, way back when we first started talking about the book, there was some discussion of turning the Best of Jezebel into book form, but I don’t think a book of previously published stuff is that interesting to consumers. But there was something compelling in taking a site that has a known sensibility and translating it into book form in a very explicit way—which is the way we see the world. And when I say “we,” it’s a very broad term, and it should be a broad term—no pun intended. The sensibility of the site has been crafted by the people who have run it, the people who write it, and the commenters and readers as well. There isn’t one party line, except that women should be taken seriously and are awesome and funny—I think everyone can agree on that—and that historically they have not been well-served by women’s media, which is part of why the site started in the first place.
Hess: One of the frustrations of writing in women’s spaces online is that we’re often defining ourselves in opposition to other coverage about women. In my writing on Double X—and in a lot of the writing that appears on Jezebel, too—the pace is so quick that our work is largely a response to an offensive story or the latest frat boy email. Part of the fun of writing the book was to celebrate female culture independently, in a way that’s not bogged down by the day-to-day call and response.
Holmes: A lot of Internet writing is reactionary—I don’t mean that in the revolutionary sense, but that a lot of blogging is about applying readings to things that exist elsewhere in the media. The book is more self-contained. It’s about the situations and concepts that are relevant to being female in the contemporary United States, and not in the granular way that a blog or website demands, which can be very exhausting. Sometimes, you need to explain things more in a blog post to put everything in context—some entries in the book are just a one-liner, because sometimes that’s all that needed to be said. I can’t think of that many posts on the site that were just one-liners. Were you the one who did the entry for cunnilingus?
Holmes: It was simply one word, which is: “Mandatory.”
Hess: You left Jezebel three years ago. What advice did you give to the current editor, Jessica Coen, when she took over?
Holmes: I had hired her five months prior, so she had five months to kind of get it. I don’t know I gave her any specific advice when I left—if I did, it was to not spend your every waking hour on the site so that you have no life. I’m a cautionary tale. I went so balls-out that it became an unhealthy thing for me. I didn’t read the site for six months after I left, because I didn’t want to get close to creating a situation where I would meddle. If I saw something I didn’t like, I didn’t want it to come out in some way, if I ran into someone on the street. It was like my baby. I had a baby, and I handed it off to someone else, and now that person is raising that child and I can’t be like, “No! You have to feed her at this time.” Maybe that’s a horrible analogy because I don’t have kids, but it felt like it was such a part of me that I had to just not engage with it.
When a man in Indiana, Pa., spotted a deer in the Wal-Mart parking lot, he shot it right there. The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reports he got six months' probation, even though it was, in fairness, the first day of hunting season.
You how it is with deer hunting, you have to get the right gear. You think about the time and place. You might build a deer stand, a kind of treehouse to shoot from high ground. Or you can do like a man in Indiana, Pennsylvania. He spotted a deer in the Wal-Mart parking lot and he shot it right there. The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review says he got six months' probation, even though it was, in all fairness, the first day of hunting season when he opened fire.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by a contractor for NPR, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of NPR's programming is the audio.
Small group of homeless people are extremely high users of ERs
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
22-Oct-2013
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Contact: Leslie Shepherd shepherdl@smh.ca 416-864-6094 St. Michael's Hospital
Homeless visit ER 8 times as often as general population
TORONTO, Oct. 22, 2013Although homeless people account for a small proportion of Emergency Department visits, a small group of them are extremely high users and have multiple complex health care needs, new research has found.
During a four-year study conducted by St. Michael's Hospital, almost 900 homeless adults had more than 8,500 ED visits, roughly two per person per year. But 60 per cent of those visits were made by only 10 per cent of the participants in the study, who had an average 12 trips to the ED each year.
Compared to the low-income population of Toronto, homeless participants in this study visited an ED more than eight times as often.
The research led by Dr. Stephen Hwang of the hospital's Centre for Research on Inner City Health was published in three papers today in a special issue of the American Journal of Public Health devoted to homelessness and public health, one looking at the overall health care use by homeless people and two others examining factors that predict frequent ED use and hospitalizations. All three papers used data from the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences, where Dr. Hwang is an adjunct scientist.
The study also found that single homeless women were more likely than single homeless men to have made at least one ED visit during the study and that homeless adults with families (mostly women with dependent children) were far less likely to be frequent users.
Single homeless women generally have a higher prevalence of mental illness, while single homeless men have a higher prevalence of substance abuse. Homeless mothers generally have lower rates of both, which may partially explain why families in this study had lower rates of ED use.
Other factors significantly associated with any ED use were: being born in Canada, having higher monthly income, perceived unmet needs for mental health care, lack of belief in the ability to control one's health and poorer physical health status.
Immigrants and members of visible minority groups were half as likely to use ED services, possibly because homeless recent immigrants tend to be healthier than homeless people who are born in Canada. Dr. Hwang said it's also possible that factors related to language, awareness of services, socio-economic barriers and perceived discrimination or stigma may deter those individuals from visiting the ED.
Surprisingly, higher monthly incomes were associated with a greater likelihood of frequent ED use. Dr. Hwang said these individuals may be engaging in risk behaviours, such as binge drinking or drug use, following receipt of social support payments.
Dr. Hwang said previous studies have shown that interventions such as intensive case management or housing first programs, that move homeless people immediately into stable housing, have the potential to reduce ED use, lower costs and improve social and clinical outcomes among the frequent users. He said more research is needed to determine whether those interventions would also work for the general homeless population.
"Reducing frequent emergency health care use among homeless persons will require sustained efforts to reduce unmet needs for health care, particularly for mental health services, and improvement in the coordination of care across health and social services," he said.
###
This research project was funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.
About St. Michael's Hospital
St Michael's Hospital provides compassionate care to all who enter its doors. The hospital also provides outstanding medical education to future health care professionals in more than 23 academic disciplines. Critical care and trauma, heart disease, neurosurgery, diabetes, cancer care, care of the homeless and global health are among the Hospital's recognized areas of expertise. Through the Keenan Research Centre and the Li Ka Shing International Healthcare Education Centre, which make up the Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute, research and education at St. Michael's Hospital are recognized and make an impact around the world. Founded in 1892, the hospital is fully affiliated with the University of Toronto.
For more information or to interview Dr. Hwang, contact:
Leslie Shepherd
Manager, Media Strategy
Communications and Public Affairs Department
St. Michael's Hospital
416-864-6094
shepherdl@smh.ca
Inspired Care. Inspiring Science.
Video, photos and texts of the studies are available at https://www.dropbox.com/sh/982d0d90qvkh903/kqqZOtoqdk
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Small group of homeless people are extremely high users of ERs
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
22-Oct-2013
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]
Share
Contact: Leslie Shepherd shepherdl@smh.ca 416-864-6094 St. Michael's Hospital
Homeless visit ER 8 times as often as general population
TORONTO, Oct. 22, 2013Although homeless people account for a small proportion of Emergency Department visits, a small group of them are extremely high users and have multiple complex health care needs, new research has found.
During a four-year study conducted by St. Michael's Hospital, almost 900 homeless adults had more than 8,500 ED visits, roughly two per person per year. But 60 per cent of those visits were made by only 10 per cent of the participants in the study, who had an average 12 trips to the ED each year.
Compared to the low-income population of Toronto, homeless participants in this study visited an ED more than eight times as often.
The research led by Dr. Stephen Hwang of the hospital's Centre for Research on Inner City Health was published in three papers today in a special issue of the American Journal of Public Health devoted to homelessness and public health, one looking at the overall health care use by homeless people and two others examining factors that predict frequent ED use and hospitalizations. All three papers used data from the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences, where Dr. Hwang is an adjunct scientist.
The study also found that single homeless women were more likely than single homeless men to have made at least one ED visit during the study and that homeless adults with families (mostly women with dependent children) were far less likely to be frequent users.
Single homeless women generally have a higher prevalence of mental illness, while single homeless men have a higher prevalence of substance abuse. Homeless mothers generally have lower rates of both, which may partially explain why families in this study had lower rates of ED use.
Other factors significantly associated with any ED use were: being born in Canada, having higher monthly income, perceived unmet needs for mental health care, lack of belief in the ability to control one's health and poorer physical health status.
Immigrants and members of visible minority groups were half as likely to use ED services, possibly because homeless recent immigrants tend to be healthier than homeless people who are born in Canada. Dr. Hwang said it's also possible that factors related to language, awareness of services, socio-economic barriers and perceived discrimination or stigma may deter those individuals from visiting the ED.
Surprisingly, higher monthly incomes were associated with a greater likelihood of frequent ED use. Dr. Hwang said these individuals may be engaging in risk behaviours, such as binge drinking or drug use, following receipt of social support payments.
Dr. Hwang said previous studies have shown that interventions such as intensive case management or housing first programs, that move homeless people immediately into stable housing, have the potential to reduce ED use, lower costs and improve social and clinical outcomes among the frequent users. He said more research is needed to determine whether those interventions would also work for the general homeless population.
"Reducing frequent emergency health care use among homeless persons will require sustained efforts to reduce unmet needs for health care, particularly for mental health services, and improvement in the coordination of care across health and social services," he said.
###
This research project was funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.
About St. Michael's Hospital
St Michael's Hospital provides compassionate care to all who enter its doors. The hospital also provides outstanding medical education to future health care professionals in more than 23 academic disciplines. Critical care and trauma, heart disease, neurosurgery, diabetes, cancer care, care of the homeless and global health are among the Hospital's recognized areas of expertise. Through the Keenan Research Centre and the Li Ka Shing International Healthcare Education Centre, which make up the Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute, research and education at St. Michael's Hospital are recognized and make an impact around the world. Founded in 1892, the hospital is fully affiliated with the University of Toronto.
For more information or to interview Dr. Hwang, contact:
Leslie Shepherd
Manager, Media Strategy
Communications and Public Affairs Department
St. Michael's Hospital
416-864-6094
shepherdl@smh.ca
Inspired Care. Inspiring Science.
Video, photos and texts of the studies are available at https://www.dropbox.com/sh/982d0d90qvkh903/kqqZOtoqdk
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| E-mail
Share
]
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
President Barack Obama gestures while speaking in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington, Monday, Oct. 21, 2013, on the initial rollout of the health care overhaul. Obama acknowledged that the widespread problems with his health care law's rollout are unacceptable, as the administration scrambles to fix the cascade of computer issues. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)
President Barack Obama gestures while speaking in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington, Monday, Oct. 21, 2013, on the initial rollout of the health care overhaul. Obama acknowledged that the widespread problems with his health care law's rollout are unacceptable, as the administration scrambles to fix the cascade of computer issues. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)
President Barack Obama, standing with supporters of his health care law, speaks in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington, Monday, Oct. 21, 2013, on the initial rollout of the health care overhaul. Obama acknowledged that the widespread problems with his health care law's rollout are unacceptable, as the administration scrambles to fix the cascade of computer issues. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)
President Barack Obama gestures while speaking in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington, Monday, Oct. 21, 2013, on the initial rollout of the health care overhaul. Obama acknowledged that the widespread problems with his health care law's rollout are unacceptable, as the administration scrambles to fix the cascade of computer issues. (AP Photo/ Evan Vucci)
White House press secretary Jay Carney introduces Council of Economic Advisers Chairman Jason Furman who spoke about the economy post government shutdown at the daily press briefing at the White House in Washington, Tuesday, Oct. 22, 2013. Furman said the addition of 148,000 jobs in September is a sign of "solid" growth but forecasts worsening in October because of the 16-day partial government shutdown. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)
WASHINGTON (AP) — Crammed into conference rooms with pizza for dinner, some programmers building the Obama administration's showcase health insurance website were growing increasingly stressed. Some worked past 10 p.m., energy drinks in hand. Others rewrote computer code over and over to meet what they considered last-minute requests for changes from the government or other contractors.
As questions mount over the website's failure, insider interviews and a review of technical specifications by The Associated Press found a mind-numbingly complex system put together by harried programmers who pushed out a final product that congressional investigators said was tested by the government and not private developers with more expertise.
The details about problems with the website's design emerged as the White House revealed that President Barack Obama's longtime adviser Jeffrey Zients is taking on to provide management advice to help fix the system. White House press secretary Jay Carney says Zients will be on a short-term assignment at the Health and Human Services Department before he's due to take over as director of Obama's National Economic Council Jan. 1.
Carney cited Zeints' expertise as a longtime management consultant and his "proven track record" since coming to the White House in 2009, both as interim budget director and as chief performance officer, when he headed an effort to streamline government and cut costs. "We're engaged in an all-out effort to improve the online experience," Carney said.
Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said in a post on HealthCare.gov that her agency is also bringing in more experts and specialists from government and industry, including top Silicon Valley companies.
"This new infusion of talent will bring a powerful array of subject matter expertise and skills, including extensive experience scaling major IT systems," she said. "This effort is being marshaled as part of a cross-functional team that is working aggressively to diagnose parts of HealthCare.gov that are experiencing problems, learn from successful states, prioritize issues, and fix them."
Project developers for the health care website who spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity — because they feared they would otherwise be fired — said they raised doubts among themselves whether the website could be ready in time. They complained openly to each other about what they considered tight and unrealistic deadlines. One was nearly brought to tears over the stress of finishing on time, one developer said. Website builders saw red flags for months.
A review of internal architectural diagrams obtained by the AP revealed the system's complexity. Insurance applicants have a host of personal information verified, including income and immigration status. The system connects to other federal computer networks, including ones at the Social Security Administration, IRS, Veterans Administration, Office of Personnel Management and the Peace Corps.
Obama on Monday acknowledged technical problems that he described as "kinks in the system." But in remarks at a Rose Garden event, Obama offered no explanation for the failure except to note that high traffic to the website caused some of the slowdowns. He said it had been visited nearly 20 million times — fewer monthly visits so far than many commercial websites, such as PayPal, AOL, Wikipedia or Pinterest.
"The problem has been that the website that's supposed to make it easy to apply for and purchase the insurance is not working the way it should for everybody," Obama said. "There's no sugarcoating it. The website has been too slow. People have been getting stuck during the application process. And I think it's fair to say that nobody is more frustrated by that than I am."
The online system was envisioned as a simple way for people without health insurance to comparison-shop among competing plans offered in their state, pick their preferred level of coverage and cost and sign up. For many, it's not worked out that way so far.
Just weeks before the launch of HealthCare.gov on Oct. 1, one programmer said, colleagues huddled in conference rooms trying to patch "bugs," or deficiencies in computer code. Unresolved problems led to visitors experiencing cryptic error messages or enduring long waits trying to sign up.
Congressional investigators have concluded that the government's Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, not private software developers, tested the exchange's computer systems during the final weeks. That task, known as integration testing, is usually handled by software companies because it ferrets out problems before the public sees the final product.
The government spent at least $394 million in contracts to build the federal health care exchange and the data hub. Those contracts included major awards to Virginia-based CGI Federal Inc., Maryland-based Quality Software Services Inc. and Booz Allen Hamilton Inc.
CGI Federal said in a statement Monday it was working with the government and other contractors "around the clock" to improve the system, which it called "complex, ambitious and unprecedented."
The schematics from late 2012 show how officials designated a "data services hub" — a traffic cop for managing information — in lieu of a design that would have allowed state exchanges to connect directly to government servers when verifying an applicant's information. On Sunday, the Health and Human Services Department said the data hub was working but not meeting public expectations: "We are committed to doing better."
Administration officials so far have refused to say how many people actually have managed to enroll in insurance during the three weeks since the new marketplaces became available. Without enrollment numbers, it's impossible to know whether the program is on track to reach projections from the Congressional Budget Office that 7 million people would gain coverage during the first year the exchanges were available.
Instead, officials have selectively cited figures that put the insurance exchanges in a positive light. They say more than 19 million people have logged on to the federal website and nearly 500,000 have filled out applications for insurance through both the federal and state-run sites.
The flood of computer problems since the website went online has been deeply embarrassing for the White House. The snags have called into question whether the administration is capable of implementing the complex policy and why senior administration officials — including the president — appear to have been unaware of the scope of the problems when the exchange sites opened.
Even as the president spoke at the Rose Garden, more problems were coming to light. The administration acknowledged that a planned upgrade to the website had been postponed indefinitely and that online Spanish-language signups would remain unavailable, despite a promise to Hispanic groups that the capability would start this week. And the government tweaked the website's home page so visitors can now view phone numbers to apply the old-fashioned way or window-shop for insurance rates without registering first.
The House Energy and Commerce Committee was expected to conduct an oversight hearing Thursday, probably without Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius testifying. She could testify on Capitol Hill on the subject as early as next week.
Uninsured Americans have until about mid-February to sign up for coverage if they are to meet the law's requirement that they be insured by the end of March. If they don't, they will face a penalty. The administration says it's working to address the timing issue to provide more flexibility.
Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., plans to introduce legislation to delay that requirement because: "It's not fair to punish people for not buying something that's not available," Rubio told "CBS This Morning" on Tuesday.
On Monday, the White House advised people frustrated by the online tangle that they can enroll by calling 1-800-318-2596 in a process that should take 25 minutes for an individual or 45 minutes for a family. Assistance is also available in communities from helpers who can be found at LocalHelp.HealthCare.gov.
___
Associated Press writer Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar contributed to this report.
___
Follow Jack Gillum on Twitter at http://twitter.com/jackgillum or Julie Pace at http://twitter.com/jpaceDC.
Chael Sonnen’s marketability and vicious trash talk have made him perhaps the most wanted man in MMA. Sonnen fighting is in such big demand, in fact, that he now has not just one but two opponents lined up.
Sonnen is already set to face former light heavyweight champ Rashad Evans in November at UFC 167. While interviewing his boss UFC president Dana White on a segment for Fox Sports Live – The American Gangster’s night job – Sonnen learned, however, that he will also be a coach on the third season of "The Ultimate Fighter: Brazil" opposite his nemesis Wandelei Silva.
"You two will coach The Ultimate Fighter. You will have a ton of security down there with you, and it should be a fun season," White told Sonnen, perhaps only half-joking about the need for security.
In interviews and in tweets, Sonnen has insulted many national Brazilian fight heroes and, indeed the entire country, often deriding them as being primitive. The xenophobic speech from Sonnen appeared to draw the sincere ire of Silva three years ago and Silva confronted Sonnen in person during an exchange caught on tape (video below).
Silva told Sonnen that he knew nothing of Brazil or its people and that he should keep quiet or that he could get hurt. Sonnen did not fire back at Silva in person but has since used the web and airwaves to hurl insults at the former champion.
Silva has since lobbied hard to fight Sonnen, but injuries will keep him out of action until 2014. White said that Silva and Sonnen will indeed fight one another after coaching on TUF: Brazil 3.
A date has not been set. Neither has a weight, for that matter. Both men have bounced around between middleweight and light heavyweight as of late.
In recent months, Silva has produced over the top, pro-wrestling style promo videos where he’s yelled at Sonnen through a camera and staged a confrontation at an expo, but his original, organic dressing down of Sonnen in a car while the pair were both doing UFC public relations activities is the real, enjoyable watch. We imagine being told, “In Brazil we have a saying – you have respect, you don’t lose your teeth,” by The Axe Murderer in a calm, even voice, is terrifying. Sonnen certainly looked a bit nervous.
It all seemed so easy then. Back in June, the Supreme Court declared the Affordable Care Act constitutional. Waiting for that decision may have cost the administration precious time.
Mark Wilson/Getty Images
It all seemed so easy then. Back in June, the Supreme Court declared the Affordable Care Act constitutional. Waiting for that decision may have cost the administration precious time.
Mark Wilson/Getty Images
Since the Affordable Care Act's health care exchanges launched to a long series of error messages Oct. 1, most of the "what went wrong" fingers have been pointing at software developers.
But some say there's more to it than that — that politics has played a role as well.
"It is a mess and there's no sugarcoating it, and people shouldn't sugarcoat that," says Jay Angoff, who formerly ran the health exchange program for the Department of Health and Human Services. "On the other hand, people should remember that those who are in charge of the money HHS needs to implement the federal exchange are dedicated to the destruction of the federal exchange, and the destruction of the Affordable Care Act."
Which led to the first big problem — money. When it became clear that HHS would need more money to build the federal exchange than had been allocated in the original law, Republicans in Congress refused to provide it.
As a result, says Angoff, officials "had to scrape together money from various offices within HHS to build the federal exchange."
Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney campaigned to repeal the Affordable Care Act. Did that further delay implementation of the law?
Alex Wong/Getty Images
Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney campaigned to repeal the Affordable Care Act. Did that further delay implementation of the law?
Alex Wong/Getty Images
Then there was the timing issue. Technically, department officials have had 3 1/2 years since the law passed. But much of that time was spent in limbo. First there was waiting to see if the Supreme Court would overturn the law in the summer of 2012. (It didn't.) Then there was waiting to see if Mitt Romney and a Republican Senate would be elected that November to repeal it. (They weren't.)
Then it was another month waiting for states to decide if they wanted to build their own health exchanges or let the federal government do it for them.
"The administration bent over backward to accommodate the states; the administration begged states to cooperate," Angoff says.
And in the end, the administration made a major miscalculation. Officials figured that even Republican states would both create their own exchanges and expand their Medicaid programs because both came with so much federal money attached.
"The thought was that ultimately money trumps everything," says Angoff. "And that no matter what the rhetoric was of some of the elected officials against the Affordable Care Act, ultimately they would take the money. And I think what surprised most people was that in this case, money didn't trump everything."
So what now? Even some of the administration's strongest backers think it needs to change course. Ezekiel Emanuel, brother of former Obama chief of staff Rahm Emanuel and himself an architect of the health law, took the administration to task on Monday for not being more forthcoming about the website's problems and how it's fixing them.
"I think they need to have daily briefings, and they need to give us milestones over the next four weeks as to what we should look for improvement," he said Monday on MSNBC. "Reassurance verbally is not worth much at this point, and we need to see weekly what's improved; but we need a daily briefing."
So far, though, that's not happening. And no timetables are being given for any final fix.
It all seemed so easy then. Back in June, the Supreme Court declared the Affordable Care Act constitutional. Waiting for that decision may have cost the administration precious time.
Mark Wilson/Getty Images
It all seemed so easy then. Back in June, the Supreme Court declared the Affordable Care Act constitutional. Waiting for that decision may have cost the administration precious time.
Mark Wilson/Getty Images
Since the Affordable Care Act's health care exchanges launched to a long series of error messages Oct. 1, most of the "what went wrong" fingers have been pointing at software developers.
But some say there's more to it than that — that politics has played a role as well.
"It is a mess and there's no sugarcoating it, and people shouldn't sugarcoat that," says Jay Angoff, who formerly ran the health exchange program for the Department of Health and Human Services. "On the other hand, people should remember that those who are in charge of the money HHS needs to implement the federal exchange are dedicated to the destruction of the federal exchange, and the destruction of the Affordable Care Act."
Which led to the first big problem — money. When it became clear that HHS would need more money to build the federal exchange than had been allocated in the original law, Republicans in Congress refused to provide it.
As a result, says Angoff, officials "had to scrape together money from various offices within HHS to build the federal exchange."
Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney campaigned to repeal the Affordable Care Act. Did that further delay implementation of the law?
Alex Wong/Getty Images
Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney campaigned to repeal the Affordable Care Act. Did that further delay implementation of the law?
Alex Wong/Getty Images
Then there was the timing issue. Technically, department officials have had 3 1/2 years since the law passed. But much of that time was spent in limbo. First there was waiting to see if the Supreme Court would overturn the law in the summer of 2012. (It didn't.) Then there was waiting to see if Mitt Romney and a Republican Senate would be elected that November to repeal it. (They weren't.)
Then it was another month waiting for states to decide if they wanted to build their own health exchanges or let the federal government do it for them.
"The administration bent over backward to accommodate the states; the administration begged states to cooperate," Angoff says.
And in the end, the administration made a major miscalculation. Officials figured that even Republican states would both create their own exchanges and expand their Medicaid programs because both came with so much federal money attached.
"The thought was that ultimately money trumps everything," says Angoff. "And that no matter what the rhetoric was of some of the elected officials against the Affordable Care Act, ultimately they would take the money. And I think what surprised most people was that in this case, money didn't trump everything."
So what now? Even some of the administration's strongest backers think it needs to change course. Ezekiel Emanuel, brother of former Obama chief of staff Rahm Emanuel and himself an architect of the health law, took the administration to task on Monday for not being more forthcoming about the website's problems and how it's fixing them.
"I think they need to have daily briefings, and they need to give us milestones over the next four weeks as to what we should look for improvement," he said Monday on MSNBC. "Reassurance verbally is not worth much at this point, and we need to see weekly what's improved; but we need a daily briefing."
So far, though, that's not happening. And no timetables are being given for any final fix.
Study of decline of malaria in the US could affect approach to malaria epidemic abroad, UT Arlington researcher says
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
21-Oct-2013
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Contact: Bridget Lewis blewis@uta.edu 817-272-3317 University of Texas at Arlington
Rethinking the 1930s attack on malaria
A new University of Texas at Arlington study about the elimination of malaria in the 1930s American South may have significant implications for solving modern day malaria outbreaks in parts of Africa, Central and Latin America, and Asia.
Researchers challenged a leading argument that movement of Southern tenant farmers away from mosquito breeding grounds was the dominant factor in the decline of malaria in U.S. during the 1930s.
Instead, targeted public health interventions and the development of local-level public health infrastructure helped eradicate the disease, according to Daniel Sledge, assistant professor of political science at UT Arlington and lead author of Eliminating Malaria in the American South: An Analysis of the Decline of Malaria in 1930s Alabama, a paper recently published by the American Journal of Public Health.
We found that targeted public health interventions, supported by the federally backed development of state and local public health infrastructure, led to the decline of malaria despite widespread and deep-seated poverty, Sledge said.
Beth Wright, dean of the College of Liberal Arts at UT Arlington, said Sledges research benefits the public, health professionals and policy makers globally.
Dr. Sledges work has far-reaching implications for those who work to eradicate malaria and similar diseases, Wright said. Huge challenges remain, but such research brings about better understanding of potential solutions and could ultimately help save lives.
Malaria is an infectious disease caused by a parasite called plasmodium and transmitted through the bites of infected mosquitoes. The disease causes fever, headache, and vomiting. Untreated, it can become life threatening.
Malaria killed an estimated 1.24 million worldwide in 2010 and decimated economies in the heavily populated, warm climate regions of the Global South, according to recent studies.
Malaria played a similarly devastating role in the American South until the 1930s, researchers detailed, by lowering the productivity of workers, deterring migration into the region and severely limiting economic growth.
Historian Margaret Humphreys argued in her landmark 2001 book, Malaria: Race, Poverty, and Public Health in the United States, that it was the removal of the malaria carrier and victim from the vicinity of the anopheles mosquito that likely had the largest effect on the decline of the disease.
But Sledge and co-author George Mohler, assistant professor of mathematics and computer science at Santa Clara University in California, found otherwise.
We assessed this argument using Census data on the number of farms operated by tenants during the 1930s. We found that highly malarial areas actually gained population during the period that malaria declined, Sledge said. Changes in the type of farms, meanwhile, didnt lead to a decline in malaria.
He added: Put another way, population movement didnt lead to the end of malaria in the United States public health work did.
During the 1930s, the federal Works Progress Administration put unemployed Southerners to work draining millions of acres of wetlands. Along with the federally sponsored creation of local health departments, these drainage projects led to the decline of malaria, the authors said.
The federal government further ramped up its efforts during World War II, creating the agency that became the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention specifically to fight southern malaria. After the war, the CDC used the insecticide DDT to eradicate the few remaining pockets of the disease.
For their study, Sledge and Mohler used a mathematical model to analyze the decline of malaria in each of the 67 counties in Alabama, an archetypical Deep South cotton state that experienced high levels of malaria incidence well into the 1930s.
In the model, we categorized counties into three risk levels and then estimated the dependence of mortality rates on variables related to weather, WPA projects, and population movement, Mohler said. After drought, the most important variable for predicting a decline in mortality rates was the amount of drainage in a county, rather than movement out of high risk counties or a reduction in tenant farms.
In addition to drainage work, researchers point to the importance of measures such as screening and public health infrastructure as well as the training of public health workers in the elimination of the disease.
While the team concedes that there are considerable distinctions between the current Global South and the American South of the 1930s, they argue that malaria can be controlled in the face of poverty and economic dislocation and without major social change.
Today, disease surveillance, drainage measures and screening work to ensure that, on those occasions when malaria is reintroduced from outside of the U.S., the chain of transmission does not begin again, Sledge said.
###
Sledges work is representative of the world-class research under way at The University of Texas at Arlington, a comprehensive research institution of more than 33,000 students and more than 2,200 faculty members in the heart of North Texas. Visit www.uta.edu to learn more.
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Study of decline of malaria in the US could affect approach to malaria epidemic abroad, UT Arlington researcher says
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
21-Oct-2013
[
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]
Share
Contact: Bridget Lewis blewis@uta.edu 817-272-3317 University of Texas at Arlington
Rethinking the 1930s attack on malaria
A new University of Texas at Arlington study about the elimination of malaria in the 1930s American South may have significant implications for solving modern day malaria outbreaks in parts of Africa, Central and Latin America, and Asia.
Researchers challenged a leading argument that movement of Southern tenant farmers away from mosquito breeding grounds was the dominant factor in the decline of malaria in U.S. during the 1930s.
Instead, targeted public health interventions and the development of local-level public health infrastructure helped eradicate the disease, according to Daniel Sledge, assistant professor of political science at UT Arlington and lead author of Eliminating Malaria in the American South: An Analysis of the Decline of Malaria in 1930s Alabama, a paper recently published by the American Journal of Public Health.
We found that targeted public health interventions, supported by the federally backed development of state and local public health infrastructure, led to the decline of malaria despite widespread and deep-seated poverty, Sledge said.
Beth Wright, dean of the College of Liberal Arts at UT Arlington, said Sledges research benefits the public, health professionals and policy makers globally.
Dr. Sledges work has far-reaching implications for those who work to eradicate malaria and similar diseases, Wright said. Huge challenges remain, but such research brings about better understanding of potential solutions and could ultimately help save lives.
Malaria is an infectious disease caused by a parasite called plasmodium and transmitted through the bites of infected mosquitoes. The disease causes fever, headache, and vomiting. Untreated, it can become life threatening.
Malaria killed an estimated 1.24 million worldwide in 2010 and decimated economies in the heavily populated, warm climate regions of the Global South, according to recent studies.
Malaria played a similarly devastating role in the American South until the 1930s, researchers detailed, by lowering the productivity of workers, deterring migration into the region and severely limiting economic growth.
Historian Margaret Humphreys argued in her landmark 2001 book, Malaria: Race, Poverty, and Public Health in the United States, that it was the removal of the malaria carrier and victim from the vicinity of the anopheles mosquito that likely had the largest effect on the decline of the disease.
But Sledge and co-author George Mohler, assistant professor of mathematics and computer science at Santa Clara University in California, found otherwise.
We assessed this argument using Census data on the number of farms operated by tenants during the 1930s. We found that highly malarial areas actually gained population during the period that malaria declined, Sledge said. Changes in the type of farms, meanwhile, didnt lead to a decline in malaria.
He added: Put another way, population movement didnt lead to the end of malaria in the United States public health work did.
During the 1930s, the federal Works Progress Administration put unemployed Southerners to work draining millions of acres of wetlands. Along with the federally sponsored creation of local health departments, these drainage projects led to the decline of malaria, the authors said.
The federal government further ramped up its efforts during World War II, creating the agency that became the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention specifically to fight southern malaria. After the war, the CDC used the insecticide DDT to eradicate the few remaining pockets of the disease.
For their study, Sledge and Mohler used a mathematical model to analyze the decline of malaria in each of the 67 counties in Alabama, an archetypical Deep South cotton state that experienced high levels of malaria incidence well into the 1930s.
In the model, we categorized counties into three risk levels and then estimated the dependence of mortality rates on variables related to weather, WPA projects, and population movement, Mohler said. After drought, the most important variable for predicting a decline in mortality rates was the amount of drainage in a county, rather than movement out of high risk counties or a reduction in tenant farms.
In addition to drainage work, researchers point to the importance of measures such as screening and public health infrastructure as well as the training of public health workers in the elimination of the disease.
While the team concedes that there are considerable distinctions between the current Global South and the American South of the 1930s, they argue that malaria can be controlled in the face of poverty and economic dislocation and without major social change.
Today, disease surveillance, drainage measures and screening work to ensure that, on those occasions when malaria is reintroduced from outside of the U.S., the chain of transmission does not begin again, Sledge said.
###
Sledges work is representative of the world-class research under way at The University of Texas at Arlington, a comprehensive research institution of more than 33,000 students and more than 2,200 faculty members in the heart of North Texas. Visit www.uta.edu to learn more.
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| E-mail
Share
]
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
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