Culture

Like everybody, health care professionals enjoy a pay raise for a job well done. But in some instances, financial incentives for health care performance may actually backfire.

A new UCLA study shows that patient-care performance ratings for 25 medical groups across California improved significantly following the launch of a statewide pay-for-performance program in 2004 — but not when incentives focused on doctors' productivity.

Three quarters of cancer patients and survivors treated with chemotherapy suffer insomnia or sleep disorders that often become chronic conditions, hindering patients' ability to fully recover, according to scientists at the University of Rochester Medical Center.

A study of 823 cancer patients showed they experienced sleep troubles at nearly three times the rate of the general population. The problem was more prevalent in younger patients and those with lung and breast cancers, according to the paper published online in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.

Direct-to-consumer advertising (DTCA) for a commonly prescribed antiplatelet drug does not appear associated with increased use, but may be associated with increased drug costs and Medicaid pharmacy expenditures, according to a report in the November 23 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

PORTLAND, Ore. — Low-income children who don't access health care from the same place or provider over the long term are significantly more likely to have unmet health care needs compared with those do, according to a new study published in the journal Pediatrics.

Studies like this are crucial to informing the financing and delivery of quality health care for children, the researchers report.

A new study by the Wildlife Conservation Society says that western lowland gorillas living in a large swamp in the Republic of Congo—part of the "mother lode" of more than 125,000 gorillas discovered last year—are becoming increasingly threatened by growing humans activity in the region.

The study recommends protection of the swamp forests adjacent to the southwest border of Lac Télé Community Reserve after recent surveys confirmed that high densities of the great apes still exist in the remote location.

Climate change could increase the likelihood of civil war in sub-Saharan Africa by over 50 percent within the next two decades, according to a new study led by a team of researchers at University of California, Berkeley, and published in today's (Monday, Nov. 23) online issue of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

University of Alberta graduate student Jennifer Heys wants to make her message clear: there needs to be more education in Ugandan communities about contraception.

Heys' research, on HIV-positive individuals and their desire to bear more children, was read by experts from all over the world who gathered last week at the International Conference on Family Planning in Kampala, Uganda.

Heys, who studied at the School of Public Health, spent six months interviewing 421 people who lived in rural and semi-urban communities in Uganda. Of that group 199 were HIV positive.

ARLINGTON, Va. — The Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) has asked for a commitment from the Obama administration and the European Union to further the Society's mission to achieve the development of 10 new antibiotics within the next 10 years, known as the 10 x '20 Initiative. The World Health Organization (WHO) has identified antimicrobial resistance as one of the three greatest threats to human health.

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – A new study by University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) researchers shows that body-mass index (BMI) and co-existing medical conditions (co-morbidity) do not explain the decreased survival observed among African-Americans compared to Caucasians who also have colon cancer. The study is published online Nov. 23 in Cancer, a journal of the American Cancer Society.

WASHINGTON, Nov. 23, 2009 — Why do people eat mashed potatoes on Thanksgiving Day but not mashed paper towels? That's not such an odd question from a chemistry standpoint because potato and paper are almost as similar as two peas in a pod in terms of the carbohydrates they contain.

URBANA - When asked to compare apples to apples, consumers said they would pay more for locally grown apples than genetically modified (GMO) apples. But in a second questionnaire consumers preferred GMO apples – that is, when they were described, not as GMO, but as having a Reduced Environmental Impact. The research conducted by University of Illinois economist Michael Mazzocco and Augustana College marketing professor Nadia Novotorova demonstrated that product labeling makes a difference when it comes to consumer acceptance.

Surgeons who are burned out or depressed are more likely to say they had recently committed a major error on the job, according to the largest study to date on physician burnout. The new findings suggest that the mental well-being of the surgeon is associated with a higher rate of self-reported medical errors, something that may undermine patient safety more than the fatigue that is often blamed for many of the medical mistakes.

A new study from Perth's Telethon Institute for Child Health Research has found evidence that the amount and timing of alcohol consumption in pregnancy affects child behaviour in different ways.

The study has just been published online in the international journal Addiction.

Lead author Colleen O'Leary said the analysis was drawn from a random sample of more than 2000 mothers who completed a questionnaire three months after the baby's delivery, and were then followed up when the child was 2, 5 and 8 years of age.

In a new study, the amount of television viewed by many young children in child care settings doubles the previous estimates of early childhood screen time, with those in home-based settings watching significantly more on average than those in center-based daycares. This study is the first to examine screen time in child care settings in more than 20 years. The study looked at television use in 168 child care programs in four states, and was guided by lead researcher Dimitri A.

Research by the University of Warwick and the University of Manchester finds that psychological therapy could be 32 times more cost effective at making you happy than simply obtaining more money. The research has obvious implications for large compensation awards in law courts but also has wider implications for general public health.