110 research outputs found
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Stressed and Strapped: Caregivers in California
Profiles the demographics and self-reported physical and mental health status of informal caregivers caring for a family member or friend, including high blood pressure, diabetes, and heart disease; psychological distress; and unhealthy behaviors
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Health Status of the Uninsured: Opportunities for Improvement
Provides estimates of the geographic variations in the rates of self-reported fair or poor health status, asthma, and hypertension among uninsured children and adults in California
Many Uninsured Children Qualify for Medi-Cal or Healthy Families
Examines the public health insurance eligibility of children in California who did not have health insurance coverage for some or all of the year in 2002, to highlight the geographic variations in children's uninsured eligibility rates
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Holding On: Older Californians With Disabilities Rely on Public Services to Remain Independent
Presents findings from a study of low-income older Californians with disabilities receiving Medicare, Medi-Cal, and In-Home Supportive Services; their unmet physical, mental health, and social needs; and limited care options. Outlines policy implications
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Analyzing the current state of Oregon's skilled nursing facilities
The purpose of this project is to paint a picture of the state of Oregon’s Skilled Nursing Facilities for the 2015 state fiscal year. Skilled Nursing Facilities are an important part of Oregon’s Long Term care continuum that provides care to individuals needing post-acute or on-going care. The URAP student assisted Public Health faculty and PhD students in preparing a report for the Oregon Department of Human Services. The student extracted, managed, summarized, and performed quality control on data from Skilled Nursing Facility Cost Reports and Revenue Statements. This data was further analyzed by the PhD students. The student also created graphs and tables of these data as well as other data from the Skilled Nursing Facility Minimum Data Set (MDS). The student performed new analyses of quality measure data retrieved though Nursing Home Compare, which is managed by the Center for Medicare and Medicaid services (CMS). These analyses described the variation in performance across Oregon Skilled Nursing Facilities. For example, moderate to severe pain reported in short stays was 11% in the highest performing 25% of all facilities and 42% in the lowest performing 25% of facilities, which highlights differences between the highest and lowest performing facilities
The Metallicity Distribution Functions of SEGUE G and K dwarfs: Constraints for Disk Chemical Evolution and Formation
We present the metallicity distribution function (MDF) for 24,270 G and
16,847 K dwarfs at distances from 0.2 to 2.3 kpc from the Galactic plane, based
on spectroscopy from the Sloan Extension for Galactic Understanding and
Exploration (SEGUE) survey. This stellar sample is significantly larger in both
number and volume than previous spectroscopic analyses, which were limited to
the solar vicinity, making it ideal for comparison with local volume-limited
samples and Galactic models. For the first time, we have corrected the MDF for
the various observational biases introduced by the SEGUE target selection
strategy. The SEGUE sample is particularly notable for K dwarfs, which are too
faint to examine spectroscopically far from the solar neighborhood. The MDF of
both spectral types becomes more metal-poor with increasing |Z|, which reflects
the transition from a sample with small [alpha/Fe] values at small heights to
one with enhanced [alpha/Fe] above 1 kpc. Comparison of our SEGUE distributions
to those of two different Milky Way models reveals that both are more
metal-rich than our observed distributions at all heights above the plane. Our
unbiased observations of G and K dwarfs provide valuable constraints over the
|Z|-height range of the Milky Way disk for chemical and dynamical Galaxy
evolution models, previously only calibrated to the solar neighborhood, with
particular utility for thin- and thick-disk formation models.Comment: 70 pages, 25 figures, 7 tables. Accepted by The Astrophysical Journa
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Community as a source of health in three racial/ethnic communities in Oregon: a qualitative study
BACKGROUND: A 2011 report by the Oregon Health Authority and the Department of Human Services documented disparities in its Latino and American Indian populations on multiple individual-level health indicators. However, research is lacking on the social contexts in which Latinos and American Indians in Oregon live and how these environments influence the health of communities as a whole. To help fill this gap, this study sought to contextualize the social environments that influence the health of Latinos and American Indian residents in three Oregon communities. METHODS: Guided by an ecological framework, we conducted one-time semi-structured qualitative interviews with 26 study participants to identify the prominent health-related issues in the communities and to examine the factors that study participants perceived as enabling or inhibiting healthy lifestyles of community residents. We used a grounded theory approach to perform content and thematic analyses of the data. RESULTS: Study participants identified preventable chronic conditions, such as diabetes, obesity, and hypertension, as the most pressing health concerns in their communities. Results showed that traditional and cultural activities and strong family and community cohesion were viewed as facilitators of good community health. Poverty, safety concerns, insufficient community resources, and discrimination were perceived as barriers to community health. Three themes emerged from the thematic analyses: social connectedness is integral to health; trauma has an ongoing negative impact on health; and invisibility of residents in the community underlies poor health. CONCLUSIONS: This study’s findings provide insight to the social contexts which operate in the lives of some Latinos and American Indians in Oregon. While participants identified community-level factors as important to health, they focused more on the social connections of individuals to each other and the relationships that residents have with their communities at-large. Our findings may also help to explain how the intra- and inter-personal levels, the community/institutional level, and the macro level/public policy contexts can serve to influence health in these communities. For example, trauma and invisibility are not routinely examined in community health assessment and improvement planning activities; nonetheless, these factors appear to be at play affecting the health of residents.Keywords: American Indian, Latino, Migrant and seasonal farmworkers, Trauma, Community healt
Spectroscopic Survey of the Galaxy with Gaia II. The expected science yield from the Radial Velocity Spectrometer
The Gaia mission is designed as a Galaxy explorer, and will measure
simultaneously, in a survey mode, the five or six phase space parameters of all
stars brighter than 20th magnitude, as well as providing a description of their
astrophysical characteristics. These measurements are obtained by combining an
astrometric instrument with micro-arcsecond capabilities, a photometric system
giving the magnitudes and colours in 15 bands and a medium resolution
spectrograph named the Radial Velocity Spectrometer (RVS). The latter
instrument will produce spectra in the 848 to 874 nm wavelength range, with a
resolving power R = 11 500, from which radial velocities, rotational
velocities, atmospheric parameters and abundances can be derived. A companion
paper (Katz et al. 2004) presents the characteristics of the RVS and its
performance. This paper details the outstanding scientific impact of this
important part of the Gaia satellite on some key open questions in present day
astrophysics. The unbiased and simultaneous acquisition of multi-epoch radial
velocities and individual abundances of key elements in parallel with the
astrometric parameters is essential for the determination of the dynamical
state and formation history of our Galaxy. Moreover, for stars brighter than
V=15, the resolving power of the RVS will give information about most of the
effects which influence the position of a star in the Hertzsprung-Russell
diagram, placing unprecedented constraints on the age, internal structure and
evolution of stars of all types. Finally, the RVS multi-epoch observations are
ideally suited to the identification, classification and characterisation of
the many types of double, multiple and variable stars.Comment: 33 pages, 11 figures, in press at MNRAS. Figs 1, 3 and 9 included at
reduced resolution; available in full resolution at
http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1365-2966.2005.09012.
Laparoscopy in management of appendicitis in high-, middle-, and low-income countries: a multicenter, prospective, cohort study.
BACKGROUND: Appendicitis is the most common abdominal surgical emergency worldwide. Differences between high- and low-income settings in the availability of laparoscopic appendectomy, alternative management choices, and outcomes are poorly described. The aim was to identify variation in surgical management and outcomes of appendicitis within low-, middle-, and high-Human Development Index (HDI) countries worldwide. METHODS: This is a multicenter, international prospective cohort study. Consecutive sampling of patients undergoing emergency appendectomy over 6 months was conducted. Follow-up lasted 30 days. RESULTS: 4546 patients from 52 countries underwent appendectomy (2499 high-, 1540 middle-, and 507 low-HDI groups). Surgical site infection (SSI) rates were higher in low-HDI (OR 2.57, 95% CI 1.33-4.99, p = 0.005) but not middle-HDI countries (OR 1.38, 95% CI 0.76-2.52, p = 0.291), compared with high-HDI countries after adjustment. A laparoscopic approach was common in high-HDI countries (1693/2499, 67.7%), but infrequent in low-HDI (41/507, 8.1%) and middle-HDI (132/1540, 8.6%) groups. After accounting for case-mix, laparoscopy was still associated with fewer overall complications (OR 0.55, 95% CI 0.42-0.71, p < 0.001) and SSIs (OR 0.22, 95% CI 0.14-0.33, p < 0.001). In propensity-score matched groups within low-/middle-HDI countries, laparoscopy was still associated with fewer overall complications (OR 0.23 95% CI 0.11-0.44) and SSI (OR 0.21 95% CI 0.09-0.45). CONCLUSION: A laparoscopic approach is associated with better outcomes and availability appears to differ by country HDI. Despite the profound clinical, operational, and financial barriers to its widespread introduction, laparoscopy could significantly improve outcomes for patients in low-resource environments. TRIAL REGISTRATION: NCT02179112
Pooled analysis of WHO Surgical Safety Checklist use and mortality after emergency laparotomy
Background The World Health Organization (WHO) Surgical Safety Checklist has fostered safe practice for 10 years, yet its place in emergency surgery has not been assessed on a global scale. The aim of this study was to evaluate reported checklist use in emergency settings and examine the relationship with perioperative mortality in patients who had emergency laparotomy. Methods In two multinational cohort studies, adults undergoing emergency laparotomy were compared with those having elective gastrointestinal surgery. Relationships between reported checklist use and mortality were determined using multivariable logistic regression and bootstrapped simulation. Results Of 12 296 patients included from 76 countries, 4843 underwent emergency laparotomy. After adjusting for patient and disease factors, checklist use before emergency laparotomy was more common in countries with a high Human Development Index (HDI) (2455 of 2741, 89.6 per cent) compared with that in countries with a middle (753 of 1242, 60.6 per cent; odds ratio (OR) 0.17, 95 per cent c.i. 0.14 to 0.21, P <0001) or low (363 of 860, 422 per cent; OR 008, 007 to 010, P <0.001) HDI. Checklist use was less common in elective surgery than for emergency laparotomy in high-HDI countries (risk difference -94 (95 per cent c.i. -11.9 to -6.9) per cent; P <0001), but the relationship was reversed in low-HDI countries (+121 (+7.0 to +173) per cent; P <0001). In multivariable models, checklist use was associated with a lower 30-day perioperative mortality (OR 0.60, 0.50 to 073; P <0.001). The greatest absolute benefit was seen for emergency surgery in low- and middle-HDI countries. Conclusion Checklist use in emergency laparotomy was associated with a significantly lower perioperative mortality rate. Checklist use in low-HDI countries was half that in high-HDI countries.Peer reviewe
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