Cost effectiveness of needle and syringe programs this year

Return on investment 2: evaluating the cost-effectiveness of needle and syringe programs in Australia 2009 has just been published by the National Centre in HIV Epidemiology and Clinical Research, UNSW and the Department of Health and Ageing.
The report comes out very positively in favour of the gains made in these programs from 2000 - 2009, estimating that 32,050 HIV infections and 96,667 HCV infections have been averted. This has meant "substantial healthcare cost savings to government, and substantial gains in disability-adjusted life years ... For every dollar currently spent on the programs, more than four dollars will be returned (in addition to the investment – that is, five times the investment) and approximately 0.2 days of disability-adjusted life gained. Over a longer time horizon there is even greater return."

Body Image strategy for Australia

There has been some media attention in the past few days to the acceptance by the Minister for Youth Affairs, Kate Ellis, of the Proposed National Strategy on Body Image. The report was developed by the National Advisory Group on Body Image which was established by Ms Ellis earlier this year. The chair of the Advisory Group is former Cosmopolitan Editor Mia Freedman and it also includes model and television producer Sarah Murdoch (who you might have seen on the cover of the Women's Weekly this week without air-brushing).
The report encourages advertisers, the media and the fashion industry to promote more positive body image messages and includes a Voluntary Industry Code of Conduct on Body Image which recommends using healthy weight models, realistic and natural images of people and disclosure when images of people have been digitally manipulated.

Osteoporosis affects 1 in 3 men over 60

For World Osteoporosis Day 2009 last week, Australian men were being asked "How strong are your bones?" Osteoporosis Australia announced the release of a new consumer brochure targeted at men. The vision of Osteoporosis Australia is 'Healthy Bones for all Australians for life' and the site has a number of resources for health professionals including fracture calculators and Prevent the Next Fracture guides.

HealthMash.com

HealthMash is a new search engine that bills its mission as promoting health and well-being by providing relevant information of high quality from trusted health sources on the Web. The Health Knowledge Base stores explicit knowledge about health conditions, causes, treatments and procedures etc. and can focus on important facets of a health topic, e.g. specific drugs and/or supplements used to treat a disease or condition like sciatica. Results include news, video, images, clinical trials, articles, books and blogs.

Primarily consumers, but physicians will also find useful information in HealthMash. The advantage of Healthmash is is the range of media searched – including twitters and blogs.

More breast cancer cases, but early detection and improved treatment lead to fewer deaths

More women are being diagnosed with breast cancer than ever before, but death rates continue to fall, according to a report released today by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) and National Breast and Ovarian Cancer Centre (NBOCC). Breast cancer is one of the most common cancers in Australian women with over 12,000 new cases diagnosed in 2006, and projections suggest that the number of new cases will continue to grow. A total of 2,618 women died from breast cancer in 2006, making it the second most common cause of cancer-related deaths for women. Trend data indicate that breast cancer mortality rates for females have been declining since the mid 1990s and that outcomes for women diagnosed with breast cancer have improved over recent decades. These and other data in this report provide a comprehensive picture of breast cancer in Australia including how breast cancer rates differ by Indigenous status, country of birth and geographic area.

Indigenous issues in rural emergency departments

'“They just don’t like to wait”—A comparative study of Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people who did not wait for treatment, or discharged themselves against medical advice from rural emergency departments' is a paper recently published in The Australasian Emergency Nurses Journal by NCAHS's own Leanne Wright. Leanne works across Port Macquarie Base Hospital and Kempsey District Hospital as a Nurse Practitioner in emergency services.

Leanne also presented her paper at the Emergency Nurses International Conference at the Gold Coast last month and won the best rural paper at the conference, awarded by the Australian Society for Emergency Medicine. Her research found that Aboriginal people were 1.5 times more likely to leave rural emergency departments prior to being seen by the medical officer, and 2.5 times more likely to “discharge against medical advice” than non-Aboriginal people. "The study replicated urban trends for rates of “did not wait” and “discharge against medical advice” for Aboriginal people, supporting indirect evidence of service dissatisfaction for this group. Rural communities often provide limited or no choice for alternative after-hours health care arrangements, leading to potential adverse outcomes for this vulnerable group."

eviQ Cancer Treatments Online - new website

The Cancer Institute of NSW is replacing its CI-ScAT website with this new, more user-friendly point of care resource. From this week, the eviQ Cancer Treatments Online site will provide all breast, colorectal, lung, gynaeoncology, lymphoma, myeloma, and radiation oncology treatment information, as well as some nursing information. The other areas will be gradually migrated from CI-ScAT, which still remains operational until mid-December. Registration is free and the site includes such evidence-based goodies as:

• Cancer treatment protocols, all with accompanying patient information available as PDFs
• Chemotherapy dosing calculator and a Biological Equivalent Dose (BED) calculator
• Information presented in tumour specific areas

Medical and Nursing workforce reports

The AIHW has just released two reports compiling workforce information from 2007.

Nursing and midwifery labour force 2007 reports that the total number of registered and enrolled nurses 305,834, an increase of 12% since 2003. In that time, the proportion of nurses aged 50 years or over increased from 28% to 33%. The number of full time equivalent nurses per 100,000 population increased by 8% and the profession continued to be predominantly female, with females comprising 90% of employed nurses in 2007.

The Medical Labour force 2007 report found that supply of employed medical practitioners increased between 2003 and 2007, from 279 to 305 full-time equivalent practitioners per 100,000 population, which reflected a 20% rise in practitioner numbers. Women made up 34% of practitioners in 2007 compared to 32% in 2003. The average hours worked by male practitioners declined from 47.5 to 45.9 hours, while hours worked by female practitioners remained steady at 37.6 hours.

Farm life and mental health

The Mental Health of People on Australian Farms : the facts 2008, has been published by a Farm Health & Safety joint research venture on the initiative of the Australian Government. "This chartbook provides available relevant data relating to the mental health and wellbeing of the people in agriculture – the changing structure of family farms, the ageing profile of farmers and farm managers, common pressures reported by farmers that are difficult to cope with, available data relating to prevalence of mental health disorders, and suicide data relating to the farming population in Australia."

The report found that suicides and levels of self-reported distress amongst farm workers was high, due to such factors as drought, finance, meeting government requirements and family pressures. It was concluded that there is a need to work with farming families to reduce their levels of distress and there is a description of the NSW Farmers Blueprint for Mental Health and Wellbeing.

Best practice guidelines for mental health promotion programs: Children & Youth

This web resource from the Canadian Center for Addiction and Mental Health provides the health practitioner with current evidence-based approaches in the application of mental health promotion concepts and principles for children and youth. It is envisioned that these guidelines will support both the inclusion and the sustainability of mental health promotion concepts. This resource is intended to support practitioners in incorporating best practice approaches to mental health promotion interventions directed toward children (7-12 years of age) and youth (13-19 years of age.

Reposted from GWAHS Libraries Blog

Health promotion of physical activity

Health Promotion of Physical Activity is the latest in a series of papers published regularly by the Primary Health Care Research and Information Service (PHCRIS). This simple 2-page leaflet documents the latest research in this field and provides well-referenced recommendations for health practitioners. "The Australian National Physical Activity Guidelines recommend that adults take at least 30 minutes of moderate-intensity PA each day. Over half of Australian adults do not reach these recommended levels of PA and the consequences of physical inactivity account for 7% of the total disease burden in Australia."

Other topics covered in this PHCRIS Research Roundup series have included
Chronic disease self-management, Dementia and primary health care, The primary care role for people with cancer, Improving access to rural health care, Researching patient & family experience and A new climate for Indigenous health

Tips for parents on limiting video game and computer use by their children

"TV, interactive video games, and the Internet can be excellent sources of education and entertainment for kids. But too much screen time can have unhealthy side effects. That's why it's wise to monitor and limit the time your child spends playing video games, watching TV, and playing games on the internet. The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommends that kids under age 2 have no screen time, and that kids older than 2 watch no more than 1 to 2 hours a day of quality programming." The Nemours Foundation has tips for limiting time spent on these activities. (From: Healthfinder 18th October and Nemours Foundation website)

Health expenditure in Australia 2007-2008

This new report from the Australian Institute of Health & Welfare found that Health expenditure in Australia in 2007-08 reached $104 billion. As a percentage of GDP it was 9.1%, the same level as in 2006-07. The area of health expenditure showing the highest growth was public health expenditure which grew by 21% in real terms, mostly due to extra spending on immunisation. Health expenditure Australia 2007-08 examines expenditure on different types of health goods and services in the decade to 2007-08. It describes funding by the Australian and State governments, private health insurance and individuals; compares health expenditures in the different states and territories and compares Australia's spending with other countries.

Does improving quality save money?

A newly published report from Britain is titled: Does improving quality save money? : A review of evidence of which improvements to quality reduce costs to health service providers.

In it, Dr John Øvretveit reviews the evidence of whether improving quality can also save money for health service providers. It explores the cost saving potential of initiatives to improve quality and the barriers to success. "For most of the last decade, organisations have become accustomed to times of plenty. But the impending public sector spending crisis changes this context utterly. There are many ways in which savings can be made. The report sets out to answer whether improving quality can also help to address the need for costs to be saved." The evidence suggests that improving quality could have an important if limited contribution to addressing financial pressures.

Assisted reproductive technology in Australia and New Zealand

In 2007, there were 56,817 assisted reproductive technology (ART) treatment cycles undertaken in Australian and New Zealand. Of these cycles, 17.4% resulted in a live delivery (the birth of at least one liveborn baby). In total, 10,856 liveborn babies were born following ART treatment undertaken in 2007. The most important recent trend in ART treatment has been the reduction in the rate of twins and triplets births, with the multiple delivery rate falling from 18.7% in 2003 to 10.0% in 2007. This trend has been associated with an increase in the proportion of ART treatment cycles using single embryo transfer, from 32.0% in 2003 to 63.7% in 2007.

http://www.aihw.gov.au/publications/index.cfm/title/10753

Mothers and the child protection system

Inappropriate intervention in child protection cases has left many parents, especially mothers, feeling bewildered, confused and distrustful of the system, new UQ research suggests.
The research, conducted by Associate Professor Heather Douglas and Dr Tamara Walsh from UQ’s TC Beirne School of Law, has found that parents experiencing poverty and domestic violence are often targeted for intervention by child protection departments but that child protection workers do not have the skills or resources to support families.As a result, some children may be unnecessarily removed from their parents.
Douglas H, Walsh T & Blore K,

http://www.law.uq.edu.au/uq-research-provides-insight-into-child-protection

Internet addiction linked to ADHD, depression in teens

Story Highlights:

* Study found boys were at a higher risk of Internet addiction than girls
* Doctor: Treatment for addiction cannot involve simply abstaining from the Internet
* Internet addiction may be not as widespread in the U.S. as in Asian countries
* It could become one of the most chronic childhood diseases in America, doctor says

Read the whole story: http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/10/05/depression.adhd.internet.addiction/

PubMed® Redesign

The US National Library of Medicine is pleased to announce a redesign of the PubMed interface. While retaining the robust functionality, the interface was simplified to make it easier to use while promoting scientific discovery. The PubMed homepage has been streamlined, requiring less effort to find resources. The new homepage includes an NCBI Header, Search Bar, and Footer that are common to all PubMed pages. Additional useful features are outlined in the NLM Technical Bulletin 2009 September-October No 370. (From: NLM New files for the week of Sep 28, 2009)

CDC Links Infections With Swine Flu Deaths

WEDNESDAY, Sept. 30 (HealthDay News) -- Bacterial co-infections are common among people who have died of H1N1 swine flu in the United States and probably contributed to their deaths, according to a new federal government study. Researchers from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention analyzed lung tissue samples from 77 people who died of H1N1 flu between May and August this year and found bacterial co-infections in 22 of them (29 percent), including 10 caused by common bacteria called Streptococcus pneumoniae, or pneumococcus. Multiple pathogens were a factor in four of the cases, the CDC said. The findings were published Sept. 30 in an early release of the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. The study highlights how important it is for people to get vaccinated against pneumococcus, the researchers said. (From: Healthfinder 1/10/09)