Group items tagged

"Disease Maps: Epidemics on the Ground" (A lot of focus on cholera and Snow's work.)

Social media represents a new frontier in disease surveillance. Infoveillance allows for the real-time retrieval of internet data. Our objective was to systematically review the literature utilizing social media as a source for disease prediction and surveillance. A review of English-language conference proceedings and journal articles from 1999 to 2011 using EMBASE and PubMed was conducted. A total of 12 full-text articles were included. Results of these studies show the use of open-source micro-blogging sites to inform influenza-like-illness monitoring. These results inform recommendations for future research directions.

"A growing body of mortality research on immigrants has shown that the longer they live in this country, the worse their rates of heart disease, high blood pressure and diabetes. And while their American-born children may have more money, they tend to live shorter lives than the parents. "

One person's quest to tackle a rare disease, not typically the subject of social epidemiology. Is there, however, something to learn from his approach?

Includes AHA championing of low fat diet

Disease isn't synonymous with its etiological agent or the map of its victims, whether or not either is placed within a... context that acknowledges the functional ecologies humans, livestock and wildlife share. [This] misses the structural factors underlying pathogen emergence and by virtue of that omission the pathogens' likely reemergence. Every one of the new potentially human-specific influenzas, for instance, have evolved out of industrial poultry and livestock. "

NIH white paper & commentaries

"Compared to those who reported no ACE exposure, the adjusted odds of reporting myocardial infarction, asthma, fair/poor health, frequent mental distress, and disability were higher for those reporting one to three, four to six, or seven to nine ACEs. Odds of reporting coronary heart disease and stroke were higher for those who reported four to six and seven to nine ACEs; odds of diabetes were higher for those reporting one to three and four to six ACEs."

"The death rate from cervical cancer in the United States is considerably higher than previously estimated and the disparity in death rates between black women and white women is significantly wider, according to a study published Monday in the journal Cancer. The rate at which black American women are dying from the disease is comparable to that of women in many poor developing nations, researchers reported. What makes the findings especially disturbing, said experts not involved in the research, is that when screening guidelines and follow-up monitoring are pursued, cervical cancer is largely preventable."

A key figure in the shift from public health of communicable diseases to lifestyle-related life expectancy, but with a socialist commitment.

"The questions were: Was it anthrax? If so, was it a genetically engineered bioterrorism strain, or a strain that normally lives in the soil? How dangerous was it? And the answers, Dr. Musser realized, could come very quickly from newly available technology that would allow investigators to determine the entire genome sequence of the suspect micro-organism. " Yet the patient in question had died, his lungs weakened from the welding work he did.