New policy on Men's Health

The Australian Government has announced the development of a National Men's Health Policy. They are seeking comments and feedback from all Australian men during the consultation phase and there are several discussion and issues papers available to start off the process.

"The Policy will focus on reducing barriers men experience in accessing health services, tackling widespread reticence amongst men to seek treatment, improving male-friendly health services, and raising awareness of preventable health problems that affect men."

Caring for older Australians at home: new resource for community aged care

A new information resource has been launched to give service providers and care workers a blueprint for providing better care for older people.
The Research to Practice briefings, prepared by The Benevolent Society and the Social Policy Research Centre, aim to bring research evidence to community aged care workers in a user-friendly way, so that they and the older people they work with can benefit from putting evidence into practice.
The first briefing in the series is "Caring for Older Australians: Care workers and care practices that support and enable good care". The second briefing in the series, "Promoting social networks for older people in community aged care" will be released in early 2009. Briefings will be produced 3 times a year in hard copy format and on the internet.
Press Release

Reposted from GWAHS Libraries Blog

Egg Consumption and Risk of Type 2 Diabetes in Men and Women.

A new study published in Nov 18, 2008 issue of Diabetes Care suggests that eating eggs increases risk of type 2 diabetes both in men and women. For the study, the researchers looked at data from two completed randomized trial involving 20,703 men from Physicians' Health Study I (1982 to 2007) and 36,295 women from the Women’s Health Study (1992-2007). Diabetes was more common in men and women who reported eating more than the average one egg a week.
Medpage Today has given a good summary of the article, but if you would like to read the full article you will need to contact your Librarian. DiabetesNSW has also summarized the findings on their news page.

Women and exercise

The Office for Women in the Australian Department of Families, Housing, Community Services, and Indigenous Affairs has just released a report on this topic authored by Professor Wendy Brown, Dr Nicola Burton and Dr Kristiann Heesch, Physical activity and health in mid-age and older women.

The benefits of physical activity are well known and this report found that between 2001 and 2004, the percentage of mid-aged women doing 30 minutes of physical activity on most days rose from 45 to 54 per cent - primarily attributed to walking.

Australian guidelines recommend 30 minutes of moderate intensity physical activitiy on most days of the week for health benefits. The evidence reviewed in this report suggests that middle-aged or older women gain few, if any, additional health benefits from any more vigorous exercise than this. Interesting.

The Latest on Cochrane

If you need to access high-quality, independent evidence, the Cochrane Library reviews bring you the combined results of the world’s best medical research. The latest issue of the Cochrane Library included the following reviews:
*Mouth rinses for the treatment of halitosis
*Probiotics for treating eczema
*St John's wort for major depression
*Regular treatment with formoterol for chronic asthma: serious adverse events
*Combined intermittent pneumatic leg compression and pharmacological prophylaxis for prevention of venous thromboembolismin high-risk patients
*LHRH agonists for adjuvant therapy of early breast cancer in premenopausal women.
*Pelvic floor muscle training for prevention and treatment of urinary and faecal incontinence in antenatal and postnatal women.
These reviews can be accessed at the Cochrane Library.

Pearls

PEARLS are short practical summaries of the evidence in relation to specific topics, derived from Cochrane Systematic Reviews. They have been developed by the Cochrane Primary Care Field, New Zealand Branch of the Australasian Cochrane Centre at the Department of General Practice and Primary Health Care, University of Auckland and funded by the New Zealand Guidelines Group. PEARLS provide guidance on whether a treatment is effective or ineffective. PEARLS are prepared as an educational resource and do not replace clinician judgment in the management of individual cases. You can access PEARLS from the New Zealand Doctor website.

UNICEF report on the world's children

The State of the World's Children 2008 : Child Survival has just been made available as a 164 page report from Unicef.

"It provides a wide-ranging assessment of the current state of child survival and primary health care for mothers, newborns and children. It examines lessons learned in child health during the past few decades and outlines the most important emerging precepts and strategies for reducing deaths among children under age five and for providing a continuum of care for mothers, newborns and children".

Many developing countries have reduced child deaths over the past 25 years, which is cause for optimism. However, every day an average of 26,000 children under the age of five die around the world, mostly from preventable diseases and mostly in 60 developing countries, so much work is still needed.

More help needed for those with intellectual disability

The AIHW has recently released a report called Disability in Australia: intellectual disability. It presents an overview of the prevalence of intellectual disability and its related impairments, health conditions and activity limitations across the age spectrum.

In 2003 436,000 people were living in Australia with an intellectual disability, and most of them were living at home. 60% of these people needed help with things like learning, making decisions, and managing emotions; 33% needed help with mobility, 27% with communication and 24% with self-care. 38% reported that these needs were only partially met or not met at all.

Australian Diabetes Map

There are currently 918,218 people in Australia diagnosed with some form of Diabetes, according to The National Diabetes Services Scheme (an initiative of the Australia Government, administered by Diabetes Australia).

The NDSS has just released an Australian Diabetes Map, searchable by state, electorate or post code, which shows the numbers of people diagnosed with diabetes in all parts of Australia including information on age, gender and type of diabetes. Type 2 is the most common form of the disease, women are slightly more likely to suffer from Diabetes than men, and the most prevalent age group is 60-69.

Australia Measures Up!

A national Measure Up campaign to tackle obesity, and ultimately to save lives, was launched in October as part of the Australian Better Health Initiative - a joint Australian, State, and Territory government program that aims to reduce the prevalence of risk factors for chronic disease, limit the incidence and the impact of these diseases, and reduce morbidity and mortality rates. Measure Up encourages Australians to measure their waists so that they can tell whether they are at risk of developing a lifestyle-related chronic disease.
HealthInsite, an Australian Government Initiative has a number of related topic pages on obesity, cholesterol, diabetes and eating well for adults and children.

Improve Your Health Now

Losing as little as five to ten kilograms can make a big difference to your cholesterol levels, and significantly reduce your risk of heart attack or stroke according to Professor David Colquhoun writing in the October 2008 issue of Australian Prescriber. The recent article highlights the much-vaunted benefits of losing weight to improve your health now, and to prevent the onset of chronic disease in the future. “If these improvements can be made through changes to diet, weight loss, exercise and the use of special nutrient-rich or fibre-rich foods, there may be no need to take cholesterol lowering medicines,” he says.
Consistent with this theme, all Australian governments have launched a campaign to tackle obesity: Measure Up. It's designed to assist Australians to assess their risk of developing lifestyle-related chronic diseases.

International Program of Psycho-Social Health Research

IPP-SHR is a collaborative initiative jointly funded by the National Health and Medical Research Council and CQUniversity. The primary aim of this international program in research is to examine and document the human experience of serious illness (both physical and mental). IPP-SHR is a broad program addressing a wide range of topic areas including: haematology/oncology; mental health; palliative care; acute medicine; bioethics; rural and remote health; Indigenous health; spirituality; paediatrics; birth studies; and service delivery evaluation.
In essence the program is concerned with contributing to the development of psycho-social services that assist people to deal with the many challenges associated with serious physical and/or mental illness. The core work is to ‘make a difference’ and this is achieved through research, publication, education and consultancy activities. On the IPP-SHR website there are Projects, Programs and a large number of podcasts on such topics as Eating Disorders, Early-Stage Alzheimer's Disease, Humour in Critical Care Settings, Drug Administration Errors, Assessing Cardiovascular Risk and Pediatric Pain Management.

What is Podcasting?

Podcasting is a new format of broadcasting that uses internet technologies to allow you to listen to audio over the internet, at a time and place convenient to you.
Such audio can be traditional radio shows, pre-recorded audio shows or specifically designed podcast shows. You can listen to a Podcast by clicking on the audio link, or you can download it to listen to at a later date.
Subscribing to the podcast, will allow you to automatically receive the podcast as soon as each new episode is published. When a new podcast is published you will receive an email containing a link to the podcast audio.

The Credit crisis and health care

This is the title of a very apt article by John Appleby in this week's BMJ.
"It is hard to resist apocalyptic phrases (indeed, the use of the word apocalyptic) in describing the effect of the credit crunch on the world’s banking and financial systems over the past year. But it is not just the somewhat unreal and mystifying world of credit default swaps, naked short selling, and eyewatering bonuses that has been affected. As has become much clearer in the past few months the scale of the seizure in wholesale credit markets is such that the effects are being felt in the real world."
Appleby, an economist, goes on to discuss the likely repercussions of the crisis on the NHS. He suggests that health care is about to have an unavoidably difficult future.
BMJ 2008;337:a2259.

Product nutrition and consumer information

The NSW Public Health Bulletin this month includes an important paper by Jimmy Chun-Yu Louie and others: A comparison of two nutrition signposting systems for use in Australia.
Consumers are interested in making healthier food choices but the mandatory nutrition information panel currently in use in Australia is not easily understood or interpreted by most consumers. This paper reviews two nutrition signposting systems currently being considered for adoption in Australia to make the information more obvious. The authors conclude that a system similar to the colour-coded Traffic Light System is likely to be most useful.

Developed by the Food Standards Agency in the UK, where it is currently used, the CCTL system categorises the four key nutrients most associated with public health issues (fat, saturated fat, sugars and salt) as high, medium or low compared to a set of agreed criteria. This information is then portrayed as red, amber or green traffic lights on the package. The authors acknowledge there are limitations to this system but favour it with some modification.

Climate Change and Health

The National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility, based at Griffith University, has just released a report named National adaptation research plan (human health): consultation draft. Penned by A.J. McMichael and others, the report aims to guide researchers in developing strategies to cope with the health risks associated with climate change. The main risks are identified as deriving from:

• Extreme weather events and disasters
• Temperature extremes
• Air quality and pollutants
• Environmental infectious diseases borne by water and food
• Vector-borne infectious diseases
• Altered food production - affecting yield and nutritious quality
• Social, economic and demographic dislocation - especially relating to mental health.
  

Medical labour force 2006

The overall supply of medical practitioners in Australia rose between 2002 and 2006, while the primary care doctor supply fell, according to a report (free online) released on Friday by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW). Major cities (at 332 FTE per 100,000) had the largest supply of medical practitioners, followed by inner regional areas (at 184) and outer regional areas at 154 FTE.The report is based on the main findings of the 2006 national survey of registered medical practitioners. Information presented includes a national and state/territory overview of the number of medical practitioners (including age and sex, field of medicine, working hours and where they work), their geographic region and overall supply.

How do we improve the quality of our patients' care?

Worldwide, 30-40% of patients do not receive care that is based on the best possible research evidence. How do we turn this around?
In this podcast, world renowned director of the Centre for Quality Care of Research in the Netherlands, Professor Richard Grol, says the answer lies in patient centred organisation of care and improved communication between health professionals. Although the concept of health professionals working together for the good of the patient appears obvious, this is sometimes difficult to apply in the busy and complex hospital environment. Care needs to be better organised to meet the needs of patients rather than those of health professionals. This can be achieved through evidence-based guideline implementation programs and a greater focus on standardisation of processes and procedures.