Culture

A study by the University of Southampton has found there are far fewer women studying economics than men, with women accounting for just 27 per cent of economics students, despite them making up 57 per cent of the undergraduate population in UK universities.

The findings suggest less than half as many girls (1.2 per cent) as boys (3.8 percent) apply to study economics at university, while only 10 per cent of females enrol at university with an A level in maths, compared to 19 per cent of males.

Individual differences in moving activity in a novel environment are linked to individual differences in vulnerability to angling, according to an experimental study completed at the University of Eastern Finland and the Finnish Game and Fisheries Research Institute. The study used novel, long-term observations of individual behaviour in groups and authentic angling trials to analyse if behaviours predict the vulnerability to fishing in brown trout reared in traditional and enriched hatchery rearing environments.

Experts agree that it's a great way of staying fit and healthy at any age, but when faced with higher prices people are likely to swim less often, while other forms of physical activity such as working out or walking are barely affected.

According to a study by Brunel University London's Health Economics Research Group (HERG), swimming is the individual activity that most people would drop if they faced higher prices.

VANCOUVER ─ When heart symptoms strike, men and women go through similar stages of pain but women are more likely to delay seeking care and can put their health at risk, according to a study presented at the Canadian Cardiovascular Congress.

"The main danger is that when someone comes to the hospital with a more severe or advanced stage of heart disease, there are simply fewer treatment options available," says Dr. Catherine Kreatsoulas, lead author of the study and a Fulbright Scholar and Heart and Stroke Foundation Research Fellow at the Harvard School of Public Health.

SAN FRANCISCO: Half of older adults who sustain injuries severe enough that they could die in the hospital or become unable to function independently are not asked in the intensive care unit (ICU) if they wish to speak with palliative care specialists about their preferences for end-of-life care, a new study finds. The study results suggest that many older trauma patients have unrecognized needs for palliative care, the authors said at the 2014 American College of Surgeons Clinical Congress.

Patients diagnosed with diabetes and initially prescribed metformin to lower their glucose levels were less likely to require treatment intensification with a second oral medicine or insulin than patients treated first with sulfonylureas, thiazolidinediones or dipeptidyl peptidase 4 inhibitors (DPP-4 inhibitors), according to a study published online by JAMA Internal Medicine.

In a national study of hospital emergency department visits for opioid overdoses, 67.8 percent of the overdoses involved prescription opioids (including methadone), followed by heroin, other unspecified opioids and multiple opioids, according to a research letter published online by JAMA Internal Medicine.

Opioid overdoses are a leading cause of death in the United States but little is known nationally about how opioid overdoses present in emergency departments (EDs).

MONDAY, OCT. 27, 2014, Cleveland: A chemical byproduct of intestinal bacteria-dependent digestion, TMAO (trimethylamine N-oxide) – already proven to contribute to heart disease and to be an accurate tool for predicting future heart attacks, stroke and death – has for the first time been linked to heart failure and worse long-term prognosis for those patients, according to Cleveland Clinic research published today in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

New multi-scenario modelling of world human population has concluded that even stringent fertility restrictions or a catastrophic mass mortality would not bring about large enough change this century to solve issues of global sustainability.

A new study led by a Simon Fraser University health services and policy researcher says we should be concerned about Canadian federal and provincial policymakers' increasing interest in moving to activity-based funding (ABF) of hospitals.

Funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), this study is the first systemic review of worldwide evidence on ABF. It involved 19 researchers at several Canadian, Swiss and Australian universities.

SPOKANE, Wash.—Americans are in a world of hurt.

Nearly one in five U.S. adults are in pain most every day for spells of three months or longer, according to an analysis by Jae Kennedy, professor of health policy and administration at Washington State University Spokane. The estimated 39 million adults in persistent pain outnumber the residents of California.

Previous studies have said so much pain costs hundreds of billions of dollars a year in lost productivity and health care. And that doesn't take into account pain's psychic toll.

Chicago, October 27, 2014—The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research today released the results of a major new study and related reports on the recovery from Superstorm Sandy in 12 New York and New Jersey neighborhoods hard hit by the 2012 storm.

The type of sound processing that modern hearings aids provide to make speech more understandable for wearers may also make music enjoyment more difficult, according to a new study by the University of Colorado Boulder.

The findings, published in the journal Ear and Hearing, suggest that less sophisticated hearing aids might actually be more compatible with listening to music, especially recorded music that has itself been processed to change the way it sounds.

A new Canadian guideline recommends that the prostate-specific antigen (PSA) test should not be used to screen for prostate cancer based on evidence that shows an increased risk of harm and uncertain benefits. The guideline is published in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal)

The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP), American College of Physicians (ACP) and American Osteopathic Association (AOA) are urging Congress to extend the current-law payment parity for primary care and immunization services under Medicaid for at least two years. Absent congressional action, federal support for this policy runs out at the end of the year. Collectively representing nearly 423,000 physicians, the four groups met with dozens of congressional offices on Capitol Hill recently.