What Are Americans' Most Pressing Health Concerns?

Summarizes findings from a June 2006 survey on health issues Americans are most concerned about, such as developing heart disease, diabetes, obesity-related illnesses, and avian flu. Compares responses by race/ethnicity

Identifying patient concerns during consultations in tertiary burns services: development of the Adult Burns Patient Concerns Inventory

ObjectivesIdentifying the issues and concerns that matter most to burns survivors can be challenging. For a number of reasons, but mainly relating to patient empowerment, some of the most pressing concerns patients may have during a clinical encounter may not naturally be the focal point of that encounter. The Patient Concerns Inventory (PCI) is a tried and tested concept initially developed in the field of head and neck cancer that empowers patients during a clinical encounter through provision of a list of prompts that allows patients to self-report concerns prior to consultation. The aim of this study was to develop a PCI for adult burns patients.DesignContent for the PCI was generated from three sources: burns health-related quality of life tools, thematic analysis of one-to-one interviews with 12 adult burns patients and 17 multidisciplinary team (MDT) members. Content was refined using a Delphi consensus technique, with patients and staff members, using SurveyMonkey.SettingWithin outpatient secondary care.ParticipantsTwelve adult burns patients and MDT members from two regional burns centres.ResultsA total of 111 individual items were generated from the three sources. The Delphi process refined the total number of items to 58. The main emergent domains were physical and functional well-being (18 items), psychological, emotional and spiritual well-being (22 items), social care and social well-being (7 items) and treatment-related concerns (11 items).ConclusionsThe Adult Burns Patient Concerns Inventory is a 58-item, holistic prompt list, designed to be used in the outpatient clinic. It offers a new tool in burn care to improve communication between healthcare professionals and patients, empowering them to identify their most pressing concerns and hence deliver a more focused and targeted patient-centred clinical encounter

Are small businesses concerned about credit?

In a recent survey of small businesses, concerns over credit fell low on a long list of pressing problems. Why? This article examines how the recent economic environment and changes in the credit industry have affected small businesses owners' anxiety over financing.Small business

Establishing AFRICOM: Pressing questions, political concerns and future prospects

In the post-Cold War period, Africa did not constitute a top strategic priority for the U.S. A 1995 report by the Department of Defence (DoD) listed Africa at the bottom of the world's regions in strategic terms. In 1998, the National Security Strategy of the U.S. confirmed that America's security interests with regard to Africa were limited. Hence the tendency in the past was to relegate Africa to the periphery of American strategy.1 However, as Metz rightly argued some years ago, such an approach would not be wise: the U.S. does indeed have strategic interests in Africa. After all, from a U.S. point of view, serious transnational threats emanate from the region, including: state-sponsored terrorism, narcotics trafficking, weapons proliferation, international crime, environmental damage, and pandemic disease. Furthermore, Africa has been the scene of recurrent humanitarian crises, often as a result of intra-state armed conflict. Scientia Militaria: South African Journal of Military Studies Vol. 36 (1) 2008: pp. 31-5

Investing in Boys and Young Men of Color: The Promise of Opportunity

This issue brief presents findings from a scan of issues facing boys and men of color in education, health, and pathways to employment. Drawing on discussions, surveys, and interviews with experts and practitioners, the paper identifies 8 pressing concerns and gives accompanying recommendations. Areas that emerge as having great potential for impact are: reforming harsh school discipline, early interventions for dropout prevention, trauma-based mental health interventions, and career training programs

False-Positives in Psychopathy Assessment: Proposing Theory-Driven Exclusion Criteria in Research Sampling

Recent debates in psychopathy studies have articulated concerns about false-positives in assessment and research sampling. These are pressing concerns for research progress, since scientific quality depends on sample quality, that is, if we wish to study psychopathy we must be certain that the individuals we study are, in fact, psychopaths. Thus, if conventional assessment tools yield substantial false-positives, this would explain why central research is laden with discrepancies and nonreplicable findings. This paper draws on moral psychology in order to develop tentative theory-driven exclusion criteria applicable in research sampling. Implementing standardized procedures to discriminate between research participants has the potential to yield more homogenous and discrete samples, a vital prerequisite for research progress in etiology, epidemiology, and treatment strategies

Creating Opportunity for Immigrant Women and Girls in the Chicago Region: Recommendations for the Chicago Foundation for Women's Civic Plan

Division sought to understand what economic, health, and violence-related issues are most pressing for immigrant women in the Chicago region, their families, and their communities. These findings are the result of a research and information gathering process with Chicago-area immigrant women, social service providers who work with immigrant communities, a literature review on related topics, and a scan of change efforts in other states and localities related to issues impacting immigrant women and their families. This report documents the key issues facing immigrant women in the Chicago region and prioritizes those concerns into actionable micro- and systems-level recommended change efforts. The Chicago Foundation for Women is building the concerns of immigrant women into their Civic Plan, and other community organizations and advocates can learn from the voices of impacted women themselves to ensure their efforts are aligned with the true needs and desires of the community

A Healthy Dose of Research

UNLV’s School of Public Health conducts a variety of research projects to help address pressing community health concerns