How far do you have to run to burn off sugary drinks?

A new video launched recently shows how much exercise you would need to do to burn off your sugary drink habit – 52km of running each week in some cases.  With 16 teaspoons of sugar in just one regular 600ml bottle of soft drink, you’d have to run a staggering 3km to burn it off. If you’re drinking a 600ml bottle a day, you’d have to run almost half a marathon each week just to burn off your soft drink habit!

The calculator provided lets you see exactly how far you need to walk to burn that sugar off.
http://www.rethinksugarydrink.org.au/ 

Staphylococcus aureus bacteraemia in Australian public hospitals

The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare has released a new report "Staphylococcus aureus bacteraemia in Australian publichospitals 2014-15: Australian hospital statistics".

Both the number of cases and the rates of Staphylococcus aureus bacteraemia (SAB) - or 'golden staph'-have fallen in Australian public hospitals. Overall, the majority (78%) of SAB cases were treatable with commonly used antibiotics, while the remainder (22%) were antibiotic resistant.

Download the free report: AIHWcatalogue number HSE 171   

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health performance framework 2014 report

The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare has released a new web report on the latest information on how Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in Australia are faring according to a range of measures of health status and outcomes, determinants of health and health system performance. Indicators are based on the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Performance Framework. The report highlights the main areas of improvement and continuing concern.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health performance framework 2014 report: detailed analyses AIHW catalogue number IHW 167

Free from Harm: Accelerating Patient Safety Improvement

The [US] National Patient Safety Foundation convened an expert panel to reflect on the publication of the To Err Is Human report from fifteen years ago and to consider the current state of the patient safety field look to the future 15 years. The report of the panel calls for the adoption of a total systems approach and a culture of safety, and calls for action by government, regulators, health professionals, and others to place higher priority on patient safety science and implementation. The report includes eight recommendations:

1. Ensure that leaders establish and sustain a safety culture
2. Create centralized and coordinated oversight of patient safety
3. Create a common set of safety metrics that reflect meaningful outcomes
4. Increase funding for research in patient safety and implementation science
5. Address safety across the entire care continuum
6. Support the health care workforce
7. Partner with patients and families for the safest care
8. Ensure that technology is safe and optimized to improve patient safety

Free from Harm: Accelerating Patient Safety Improvement Fifteen Years After To Err Is Human. Expert Panel Convened by The National Patient Safety Foundation's Lucian Leape Institute

Boston: National Patient Safety Foundation; 2015

Managing a Deteriorating Patient

Clinical Communiqué is a newsletter written by clinicians, using a case-study approach to report on lessons learned from deaths investigated by the Coroners’ Court of Victoria. This edition explores the “challenging scenarios of managing a deteriorating patient in a rural or regional setting, and the obstacles that are faced when attempting to transfer a critically ill patient for ongoing treatment.” 

When cases of patient deaths in hospital are reviewed at mortality case review meetings or coronial inquests, there are common themes that frequently emerge. These themes are the critical elements that need to be present, or performed well, in order to provide safe and effective patient care. They include communication, documentation, awareness of one’s skills and limitations, recognising the deteriorating patient, and following guidelines, to name but a few. Failure or sub-optimal provision of even one element, inevitably leads to a failure in a system and the potential for patients to suffer preventable harm.

Clinical Communiqué. Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine

Volume 2 Issue 4 December 2015
http://www.vifmcommuniques.org/volume-2-issue-4-december-2015/

Series of National Guidelines (SoNGs)

The Series of National Guidelines (SoNGs) have been developed in consultation with the Communicable Diseases Network Australia (CDNA) and endorsed by the Australian Health Protection Principal Committee (AHPPC). Their purpose is to provide nationally consistent advice and guidance to public health units in responding to a notifiable disease event.

Series of National Guidelines (SoNGs)

Undergraduate student clinical placements - costs and benefits

According to this review from the Sax Institute, there has been a 25.4% increase in the number of fulltime equivalent students in health related courses in Australian universities from 2009 to 2013. This has led to an increase in the need for more clinical placements, "placing additional strain on both the education provider and the health service providers where the placements may occur."

The review examined the costs and benefits of clinical placements and found only limited evidence. The obvious conclusion is that more comprehensive data collection is required and suggestions for this and further research are made.

Evidence check: the costs and benefits of providing undergraduate student clinical placements by Kelly-Ann Bowles, Terry Haines, Elizabeth Molloy, Stephen Maloney, Fiona Kent, Samantha Sevenhuysen, Joanna Tai.

Voluntary assisted death - radio podcast

Big Ideas on ABC Radio National has recently produced How We Die, an investigation into voluntary assisted death by well-known broadcaster, Andrew Denton.  Denton talks about how he watched his own father die slowly and painfully, and how he set off on a journey to find out why so many attempts to legalise voluntary assisted death have failed in Australia, despite polls showing public support. Denton listened to anti-euthanasia arguments and visited Oregon, the Netherlands and Belgium to see what happens there where laws support the practice.

Listen here to How we die or download the podcast.

Eye Health - updated statistics

The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare has updated its webpages on eye health in Australia. 

More than half of the Australian population reported having a long-term eye condition in 2011-12. There were nearly 230,000 hospitalisations for cataract extraction in 2013-14, and almost 11,000 people were employed in the eye health workforce in 2011, including over 800 ophthalmologists, around 4,000 optometrists, and over 6,000 allied ophthalmic personnel.

The site also provides links to global and national eye health policies.

Thalidomide series from The Conversation

This week The Conversation has featured a series of articles about thalidomide, "the sedative and morning sickness drug that caused thousands of miscarriages in the 50s and 60s and left more than 10,000 children severely disabled". As always, the articles are highly accessible pieces of journalism, written by experts in the field and include links to the original evidence.  Some of the articles featured so far include:

Infographic: a snapshot of the thalidomide tragedy and Timeline: key events in the history of thalidomide - both present a pictorial overview of the tragedy. 

Remind me again, what is thalidomide and how did it cause so much harm? by Arthur Daemmrich from the Smithsonian Institution. 

Could thalidomide happen again? by Sarah Ferber, University of Wollongong and Why did thalidomide's makers ignore warnings about their drug? by Garry Gray, University of Victoria answer some of the enduring questions about how this event could actually have happened.

 

Society is also to blame for thalidomiders' worsening health  by Gregor Wolbring, University of Calgary and  Why thalidomide survivors have such a tough time getting compensation by Bill Madden, Western Sydney University look at the issue from the survivors' point of view.

Psychiatric evaluation of adults - updated US guidelines

The American Psychiatric Association has released the third, updated edition of its Practice guidelines for the psychiatric evaluation of adults. Nine separate guideline modules cover:

• Review of Psychiatric Symptoms, Trauma History, and Psychiatric Treatment History
• Substance Use Assessment
• Suicide Risk Assessment
• Assessment of Risk for Aggressive Behaviors
• Assessment of Cultural Factors
• Assessment of Medical Health
• Quantitative Assessment
• Involvement of the Patient in Treatment Decisions
• Documentation of the Psychiatric Evaluation

Health outcomes following IVF pregnancies

This literature review examined the evidence for risks associated with assisted reproductive technology (ART).  The best available evidence indicates that a pregnancy after ART is often characterised by an increased risk of poorer health outcomes both for the foetus and the mothers. However these findings are confounded by multiple factors so "it is not currently known whether this is an effect of ART or of the underlying biological profile of the subfertile population".  The authors call for more focused research.

Christos A. Venetis , Georgina M. Chambers. Maternal, pregnancy and neonatal outcomes following IVF pregnancies: evidence check.  The Sax Institute.

Health of Australia's Prisoners 2015

The health of Australia's prisoners 2015, published by the AIHW, includes data from 1,011 prison entrants, 437 prison dischargees, over 9,500 prisoners who visited a prison health clinic and about 9,400 prisoners who took medications.  This report includes, for the first time, data on the smoke-free status of prisons, disabilities and long-term health conditions experienced by prisoners, and self-assessed health status.

Mental health issues and risky health behaviours, including tobacco smoking, excessive alcohol consumption and illicit use of drugs, continue to be the main areas of concern. The health of Indigenous prisoners (over-represented at 27% of the prison population) is also a continuing concern. 

Pain series from The Conversation

The Conversation has recently published a series of articles by academics, scientists and other experts about various aspects of pain. They are clearly explained with lots of links back to the evidence.  

The right words matter when talking about pain from Michael Vagg (Barwon Health) explains how to talk to people about pain and how sometimes the use of cliches can make their pain worse.  

What dictates how much pain you feel after injury? by Malcolm Hogg (University of Melbourne) explains how education levels and other social factors can effect how much pain people feel and how long it lasts.  

 

Not helping a partner with chronic pain may be the quickest road to recovery is from Toby Newton-John (University of Technology Sydney), who writes that partners who do everything for the chronic pain sufferer may actually be hindering their recovery. 

Pain drain: the economic and social costs of chronic pain by Christopher Williams (University of Newcastle) discusses our neglect of effective pain management and how this leads to an increased economic and social burden. 

Antibiotic resistance: are we all doomed?

This is the title of a recent article in Internal Medicine Journal by Peter Collignon from the Australian National University and Canberra Hospital.  It clearly summarises this important issue, which "is associated with increased deaths and suffering for people", and offers some solutions. Antimicrobials can be controlled by improved infection prevention, more diligent surveillance of usage and resistance patterns (and acting on that surveillance), ensuring that resistant microorganisms are not spread through food and water, and diligent antimicrobial stewardship.

Collignon P. Antibiotic resistance: are we all doomed?  Internal Medicine Journal. 2015;45(11):1109-15.

Women, mental health, and hormones

If you're interested in the brain, both neurologically and psychologically, ABC Radio National's program All in the Mind is worth podcasting.  Recent programs have included narcissism and domestic abuse, the use and addictive qualities of benzodiazepines, music for dementia sufferers and the science of self.

In the program, Women, mental health and hormones, guest psychiatrists, endocrinologists and women's health experts discuss why women experience twice as much depression and four times as much anxiety as men.  Biological, social and psychological factors mean that men and women experience mental illness differently and a new hormonal therapy is described as one way gender issues can be more targeted.

Mental health and human emotions - TED talks

The TED radio hour is made up of excerpts from various TED talks, including interviews with the speakers.  A recent program was called Headspace, and it examined various aspects of mental health.

Writer and psychologist, Andrew Solomon, talked about his own episodes of depression, then Alix Generous talked about how she was misdiagnosed (and mis-medicated) at a very young age with bipolar disorder. Neurobiologist David Anderson explained why psychiatric drugs don't always work and and how his own experiments with fruit flies offer a more targeted approach. Finally, psychologist Guy Winch talks about the importance of emotional hygiene and how we need to take care of our emotional wellbeing.

Listen to the program on the website, or download a podcast.  There are links to each speaker's complete talk as well.

National Health Survey: First Results, 2014-15

The 2014-15 National Health Survey is the most recent in a series of Australia-wide health surveys conducted by the Australian Bureau of Statistics. The survey was designed to collect a range of information about the health of Australians, including:

• prevalence of long-term health conditions;
• health risk factors such as smoking, overweight and obesity, alcohol consumption and exercise;
• use of health services such as consultations with health practitioners and actions people have recently taken for their health; and
• demographic and socioeconomic characteristics. 

4364.0.55.001 - National Health Survey: First Results, 2014-15 

Domestic and family violence and homelessness 2011-12 to 2013-14

This report from AIHW releases early findings on the interaction between domestic and family violence and homelessness. Nearly 200,000 adults and children sought help from homelessness services due to domestic and family violence between 2011-12 and 2013-14.  Nine in 10 adult clients (aged 18 and over) seeking assistance for domestic and family violence were female, and over one-quarter of all clients were children under the age of 15.

Domestic and family violence and homelessness 2011-12 to 2013-14  AIHWcatalogue number WEB 112         

Asthma Primer: Current Concepts in the Diagnosis and Management of Asthma

This special free issue from the journal International Forum of Allergy & Rhinology would be useful for practitioners who diagnose and treat patients with asthma. Subjects covered include epidemiology, risk factors, comorbidities, diagnosis, and treatment of asthma. 
  

Special Issue: Asthma Primer: Current Concepts in the Diagnosis and Management of Asthma. September 2015, Volume 5, Issue S1, Pages S1–S81

Australia's Health Workforce

This detailed workforce data published by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare allows you to select the location and FTE for for each registered health profession in Australia for the years 2011-14, and to customise how the results are displayed. Results can be easily exported to other formats.

Dynamic data display: Australia's registered health workforce by location. AIHW catalogue number WEB 080   

Myopia Virtual Issue

This collection of papers reflects the advances in our understanding of the conditions which can lead to the development of myopia and the advances made in slowing its development. Some corrective approaches appear to be partially successful in slowing myopia. 

Ophthalmic and Physiological Optics Volume 35, Issue 6, pages 637–642, November 2015. 

Principles of public health interventions to support injury recovery

This review examines the evidence for the effectiveness for public health interventions and identified principles and strategies which could be used in public health interventions for injured people.

Principles of public health interventions to support injury recovery and return to productivity: a rapid review by Sandra Jones, Julien Tran, Michael Matthias, Martin McDermott,  2015. Sax Institute.