Certain tag words result in substantive increased activity
on this site. Poverty, Inequities and Fluoridation
are examples. Seems like Smart Meters
also engender considerable interest within the blogosphere although no comments
to explain why the surge of activity.
Help DrPHealth continue to grow. Please send the blog link to
several public health colleagues.
Provide feedback in the form of comments, or privately to drphealth@gmail.com .
Follow on twitter @drphealth
A few hot topics that have been building up as a set of
short snappers:
Federal funding
for important health improvement activities
The January 17th link spoke to a rare
announcement by Minister Aglukkaq for a total of $300K Minister
of health performance review and suicide release . Looking at the issue of suicide which reaps
some 4.5 Million potential years of life lost each year from the Canadian economy,
that works out to some 6.7¢ per lost year of life invested in the future of
Canada. This week saw her involved in
another announcement, this time for $67.5M to support personalized
medicine. The value of which on a
potential year of life gained will be marginal. Even if we are talking a few tens of thousand
dollars for a potential year of life gained, it seems a bit odd. Economist are often looking to that value
number as one which represents a reasonable investment in improved health
care. Are we the only ones that see a bit of discrepancy
in this inequity?
Motivational
interviewing for obesity reduction:
It has been known for a long time that brief motivational
interventions are reasonably effective in tobacco cessation. The meta analysis estimated an effect size
on BMI of 0.25 reduction. Not much, but
in the dearth of evidence of sustainable effects for obesity reduction, this is
good news and a starting point. Motivational
interviewing for obesity
Improving cancer
screening rates:
Another synthesis analysis demonstrating value in client
reminders, small media, and provider audit and feedback. Insufficient quality research to provide
judgement on mass media, client incentives, group education and provider
incentives. Of particular note is that
provider incentives have been widely touted as a mechanism for improving rates,
moreso that ensuring reminder systems are in place or undertaking “audits” of
providers. Improving cancer
screening rates
Alcohol
interventions with youth
The persistent problems of youth behaviours associated with adoption
of higher risk drinking practices makes the analysis of interventions worth
staying current on. While studies are
of less than rigourous format (seems typical for interventions in real life
where placebos are challenging), the consistent benefit of family based interventions
shows promise. Such efforts support
alcohol and drug early intervention works in high schools – perhaps something that
should be considered an integral part of the education system alcohol misuse in youth
Home visiting for
alcohol and drug problems in pregnancy
The role of providing supports to new mothers is of considerable
interest in many provinces. This synthesis
suggests that there is minimal value in home interventions where there are
known high risk drug or alcohol problems.
Actually, if you read carefully most studies trended towards value, but
not statistically significant – as such the authors conclude insufficient evidence
and recommend further studying. Given
the importance of the service and the potential to save lives (RR 0.70 for
infant death amongst program recipients, RR0.16 for foster care), seems like a
logical area to invest a bit of money so that metaanalysis don’t misrepresent
the findings because of the lack of statistical significance. home visiting for
alcohol and drug problems in pregnancy
No comments:
Post a Comment