AMICOR

The global impact of income inequality on health by age: an observational study
Danny Dorling, professor of human geography1, Richard Mitchell, reader in health inequalities2, Jamie Pearce, co-director3
1 Department of Geography, University of Sheffield, Sheffield S10 2TN, 2 Public Health and Health Policy, University of Glasgow, Glasgow G12 8RZ, 3 GeoHealth Laboratory, Department of Geography, University of Canterbury, Private Bag 4800, Christchurch 8020, New Zealand
Correspondence to: D Dorling Daniel.dorling@sheffield.ac.uk

Objectives To explore whether the apparent impact of income inequality on health, which has been shown for wealthier nations, is replicated worldwide, and whether the impact varies by age.
Design Observational study.
Setting 126 countries of the world for which complete data on income inequality and mortality by age and sex were available around the year 2002 (including 94.4% of world human population).
Data sources Data on mortality were from the World Health Organization and income data were taken from the annual reports of the United Nations Development Programme.
Main outcome measures Mortality in 5-year age bands for each sex by income inequality and income level.
Results At ages 15-29 and 25-39 variations in income inequality seem more closely correlated with mortality worldwide than do variations in material wealth. This relation is especially strong among the poorest countries in Africa. Mortality is higher for a given level of overall income in more unequal nations.
Conclusions Income inequality seems to have an influence worldwide, especially for younger adults. Social inequality seems to have a universal negative impact on health.

Diabetes and hypertension: inextricably linked

The treatment of diabetes and hypertension has become one of the greatest challenges for medical professionals today. It is estimated that by 2025 some 1.56 billion people will have hypertension and by 2030 around 366 million will have diabetes. From October 22nd 2007, Nature Clinical Practice will be presenting a selection of articles from a variety of Nature Publishing Group journals that will focus on these conditions./.../

Older Physicians Unhappy

Older Physicians Unhappy and Looking to Bail Out of Medicine
(Apezar de a amostra que respondeu não ser representativa, o artigo serve para fazer pensar no tema)
By Mark Crane, Contributing Writer, MedPage Today October 25, 2007
IRVING, Tex., Oct. 25 -- Half of physicians from ages 50 to 65 are frustrated with their practices and plan to sharply cut back or abandon patient care within the next three years, according to a survey.
Fifty-two percent of these older physicians said they find medicine has become less satisfying over the past five years, according to a survey by Merritt Hawkins & Associates, a national physician search and consulting firm.
Only 10% of nearly 1,200 responding physicians said the practice of medicine is "very satisfying," down from 20% in earlier surveys.
What's more, 44% of the surveyed physicians said they wouldn't choose medicine as a career if they were starting out today and 57% would discourage their children or other young people from doing so./.../

Thursday, October 25, 2007

Reporting Observational Studies in Epidemiology (STROBE)

The Strengthening the Reporting of Observational Studies in Epidemiology (STROBE) statement: guidelines for reporting observational studies
Erik von Elm MD , et al. for the STROBE initiative
Summary
Much biomedical research is observational. The reporting of such research is often inadequate, which hampers the assessment of its strengths and weaknesses and of a study's generalisability. The Strengthening the Reporting of Observational Studies in Epidemiology (STROBE) initiative developed recommendations on what should be included in an accurate and complete report of an observational study. We defined the scope of the recommendations to cover three main study designs: cohort, case-control, and cross-sectional studies. We convened a 2-day workshop in September, 2004, with methodologists, researchers, and journal editors to draft a checklist of items. This list was subsequently revised during several meetings of the coordinating group and in e-mail discussions with the larger group of STROBE contributors, taking into account empirical evidence and methodological considerations. The workshop and the subsequent iterative process of consultation and revision resulted in a checklist of 22 items (the STROBE statement) that relate to the title, abstract, introduction, methods, results, and discussion sections of articles. 18 items are common to all three study designs and four are specific for cohort, case-control, or cross-sectional studies. A detailed explanation and elaboration document is published separately and is freely available on the websites of PLoS Medicine, Annals of Internal Medicine, and Epidemiology. We hope that the STROBE statement will contribute to improving the quality of reporting of observational studies.

Saturday, October 20, 2007

Poverty and Human Development – October 2007. Journals

Estou experimentando novas formas de apresentar AMICOR e aproveitando para postar o endereço das revistas que estão participando do projeto de publicar sobre Pobreza e Desenvolvimento Humano. Estamos (Maria Inês Reinert Azambuja, Sérgio Bassanesi, Murilo Foppa e eu) trabalhando nesta linha e esperamos que haja mais gente interessada.

Trying new presentation forms for AMICOR and tacking the opportunity to post the addresses of journals engaged in the project of publication on Poverty and Human Development. We (Maria Inês Reinert Azambuja, Sérgio Bassanesi, Murilo Foppa and me) are working in this line and we hope to find new colleagues interested.

Journals Participating in the CSE Global Theme Issue on Poverty and Human Development as of October 2007

Friday, October 19, 2007

Feeding a Hungry World -- Borlaug 318 (5849): 359 -- Science

Feeding a Hungry World -- Borlaug 318 (5849): 359 -- Science
Next week, more than 200 science journals throughout the world will simultaneously publish papers on global poverty and human development--a collaborative effort to increase awareness, interest, and research about these important issues of our time. Some 800 million people still experience chronic and transitory hunger each year. Over the next 50 years, we face the daunting job of feeding 3.5 billion additional people, most of whom will begin life in poverty. The battle to alleviate poverty and improve human health and productivity will require dynamic agricultural development.
Breakthroughs in wheat and rice production, which came to be known as the Green Revolution, signaled the dawn of applying agricultural science to the Third World's need for modern techniques. It began in Mexico in the late 1950s, spread to Asia during the 1960s and 1970s, and continued in China in the 1980s and 1990s. Over a 40-year period, the proportion of hungry people in the world declined from about 60% in 1960 to 17% in 2000. The Green Revolution also brought environmental benefits. If the global cereal yields of 1950 still prevailed in 2000, we would have needed nearly 1.2 billion more hectares of the same quality, instead of the 660 million hectares used, to achieve 2000's global harvest. Moreover, had environmentally fragile land been brought into agricultural production, the soil erosion, loss of forests and grasslands, reduction in biodiversity, and extinction of wildlife species would have been disastrous.
.............
Although sizable land areas, such as the cerrados of Brazil, may responsibly be converted to agriculture, most food increases will have to come from lands already in production. Fortunately, productivity improvements in crop management can be made all along the line: in plant breeding, crop management, tillage, fertilization, weed and pest control, harvesting, and water use. Genetically engineered crops are playing an increasingly important role in world agriculture, enabling scientists to reach across genera for useful genes to enhance tolerance to drought, heat, cold, and waterlogging, all likely consequences of global warming. I believe biotechnology will be essential to meeting future food, feed, fiber, and biofuel demand.

NIH Poverty and Human Development

NIH VideoCasting Event Summary

Monday, October 22, 2007, 10:00:00 AM
Category:
Description:
More than 230 scientific journals throughout the world will simultaneously publish articles devoted to the topic of poverty and human development. Eight of the most outstanding articles from these journals addressing critical issues of global health research and policy were selected by a panel of NIH and CSE experts for presentation. New research in these articles examines interventions and projects to improve health and reduce health-care inequities among the poor. Subject areas include: childbirth safety, HIV/AIDS, malaria treatment, food insufficiency and sexual behavior, interventions to improve child survival, physician brain drain from the developing world, influenza's impact on children, and use of satellite technology to predict disease outbreaks. The presentations involve research conducted in or about resource-poor countries throughout the world and will be published in the following journals: BMJ, AIDS Patient Care and STDs, American Journal of Public Health, PLoS Medicine, JAMA, Journal of Infectious Diseases, Obstetrics & Gynecology, and Science. For more information, visit http://www.fic.nih.gov/news/events/cse.htm

New Universal Definition for MI

From Cardiosource:
New Universal Definition of MI - learn about the big changes in a CVN interview with Joseph Alpert.
Full text in the journal
http://circ.ahajournals.org/cgi/reprint/CIRCULATIONAHA.107.187397v1

World Development Report 2008: Agriculture for Development

World Development Report 2008: Agriculture for Development

The World Bank, October 2007

Available online at: http://go.worldbank.org/LBJZD6HWZ0

Press Release: http://go.worldbank.org/IUIGDTF9M0

October 19, 2007 – World Development Report 2008 calls for greater investment in agriculture in developing countries.The report warns that the sector must be placed at the center of the development agenda if the goals of halving extreme poverty and hunger by 2015 are to be realized.
· While 75 percent of the world’s poor live in rural areas in developing countries, a mere 4 percent of official development assistance goes to agriculture.
· In Sub-Saharan Africa, a region heavily reliant on agriculture for overall growth, public spending for farming is also only 4 percent of total government spending and the sector is still taxed at relatively high levels.
· For the poorest people, GDP growth originating in agriculture is about four times more effective in raising incomes of extremely poor people than GDP growth originating outside the sector

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

2367 – AMICOR10 – 18/10/2007 – Feliz dia do Médico!

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Understanding Popualtion Health Terminology

Population health is a relatively new term, with no agreement about whether it refers to a concept of health or a field of study of health determinants. There is debate, sometimes heated, about whether population health and public health are identical or different. Discussions of population health involve many terms, such as outcomes, disparities, determinants, and risk factors, which may be used imprecisely, particularly across different disciplines, such as medicine, epidemiology, economics, and sociology. Nonetheless, thinking and communicating clearly about population health concepts are essential for public and private policymakers to improve the population's health and reduce disparities. This article defines and discusses many of the terms and concepts characterizing this emerging field.
In March 2004, the editor of The Milbank Quarterly noted a subtle but important change in the journal's subtitle, from "A Journal of Public Health and Health Care Policy" to "A Multidisciplinary Journal of Population Health and Health Policy." In explaining this change, Gray noted,
The term public health has increasingly come to connote a relatively narrow, though vitally important, set of activities that are carried out by agencies with official functions. The Milbank Quarterly is concerned with a very broad range of topics affecting health, as this current issue well illustrates. The term public health has increasingly seemed too confining. … The term population health has been increasingly used in recent years, probably because it suggests a broad set of concerns—a particular perspective—rather than a specific set of activities, actors, or approaches. Thus, population health is more descriptive of the content to which the Quarterly aspires than public health is. (2004, 4)/.../

XVIII IEA World Congress of Epidemiology

XVIII IEA World Congress of EpidemiologyEpidemiology in the Construction of Health for All: Tools for a Changing World
September 20-24, 2008 Porto Alegre – Brazil
IEA International Epidemiological AssociationABRASCO, the Brazilian Association of Collective Health
Website: http://www.epi2008.com.br/ingles/index.php
Call for abstracts: http://www.epi2008.com.br/ingles/trabalhos/index.php
Construction: Epidemiology is one of several disciplines, and epidemiologists one of several categories of social actors involved in improving population health. The word construction emphasizes the key role of epidemiology, a discipline which integrates those around it, in this multi- and trans-disciplinarity task.
Health for All: In reemphasizing this now traditional motto, we highlight epidemiology’s role at national and local levels in developing, maintaining and renovating systems offering health care to whole populations. Within this context, issues related to equity and to inclusion of disadvantaged population groups are essential. The recent Brazilian experience with a universal health system will be highlighted.
Tools: Epidemiology is largely about tools for studying disease frequency, for establishing exposure-disease relationships, for testing health interventions and for evaluating health systems. The idea of tools also extends to the construction and evaluation of preventive and curative health services, so as to permit health workers at all levels to provide evidence-based care.
Changing World: The Congress will highlight the many changes occurring in the early 21st Century: demographic and epidemiological transitions; environmental alterations; the growth in research capacity for addressing health problems around the world; and the widening gap in health status between the rich and poor found both between and within nations and accompanied by a global divide in access to the benefits of scientific progress.
Possible topics are:.
· Collaboration between epidemiology and other research disciplines
· Epidemiologists and policy-makers: how to work together
· Access to scientific information
· Epidemiology and the Millennium Development Goals
· Epidemiology and primary health care
· International and intra-national inequalities in health
· What can other countries learn from the successes and failures of the Brazilian experience?
· Epidemiology in health systems and policy research
· Epidemiology in the development, implementation and evaluation of clinical and public health guidelines
· Epidemiological methods for decentralized health management
· Translation of research findings into practice
· Health promotion, disease prevention and surveillance for non-communicable diseases
· New paradigms for disease causation: from the molecule to the population
· Life course epidemiology
· Global trends in health and in its determinants
· New exposures and new diseases
· Terrorism and violence: threats to public health
· The eminence of new pandemics
· Environmental change and public health
· Managing noncommunicable diseases in low and middle-income countries

Alvaro Matida, Secretário Executivo da Abrasco
R. Leopoldo Bulhões 1480, sala 208
Manguinhos, Rio de Janeiro - RJ – Brasil 21041-210
Tel. 55-21-2598-2527 Tel.Fax. 55-21-25608699 ou 2560-8403 http://www.abrasco.org.br/

O Médico Cidadão

(Para comemorar o dia de amanhã - dia do médico - enviei este artigo para ZH, mas não sei se será publicado. Em todo o caso quero compartilhá-lo com vocês, enviando meu abraço)
O MÉDICO CIDADÃO
Aloyzio Achutti. Médico
Temos consciência do muito que já fazemos para recuperar a saúde perdida e tentar preservá-la quando em perigo, mas ainda falta muito, pois as causas subjacentes, tanto da doença como da saúde, estão fora de nosso setor específico de atuação, e somente nossos braços não as alcançam.
Saúde não é assunto só de médico. As doenças dos indivíduos que atendemos são sintomas de doenças sociais, e aqui, social, não somente com foco na baixa renda ou na pobreza.
Já sabemos de há muito que quanto mais complexa a atividade exercida, tanto mais dependemos de outros profissionais da saúde e de infra-estrutura que nos apóiem. Dependemos da vontade do próprio paciente querendo se recuperar, observando nossa prescrição.
O agricultor sabe que sem preparar a terra, sem adubar, cuidar do inço e das pragas, da época do ano mais adequada, e de proteger as plantas enquanto crescem, não adianta plantar nada.
O engenheiro sabe que antes de começar a construir o edifício, tem que cavar a terra, precisa construir no sentido contrário, fazer boas fundações para que o prédio não venha a ruir.
O advogado também procura a jurisprudência, sem o que fica muito difícil defender o caso específico de seu cliente.
O comerciante tem experiência com a propaganda, sem a qual, e sem colocar seu produto a vista, com boa aparência e preço razoável, não vai conseguir vender.
A famigerada CPMF, no início foi também coisa de médico, tentando conseguir mais recursos para um setor que é sempre deixado para trás. Esperam para repartir depois de o bolo crescer, sem se dar conta de que sem saúde integral (com todos seus componentes essenciais de qualidade de vida) não se chega lá. O problema é que colocaram olho grande no que era para ser uma contribuição, tornando-a mais um imposto, desviando de seu destino.
Não podemos ser ingênuos permitindo que nos espoliem, e mais uma vez intermediários se intrometam e se aproveitem de nossas soluções. Precisamos fazer valer todo nosso potencial e conseguir parceria com os demais setores da sociedade, com a educação, com o comércio, com a indústria, a justiça, a agricultura, e tantos outros, para todos entendermos que saúde sem cidadania não existe.
Seria bom que pensássemos e tentássemos arregimentar esforços para além de nossos casos clínicos e de nossas ciências e técnicas biomédicas, para salvar não somente nosso enfermo, mas também a sociedade que adoece o cidadão, para poder devolvê-lo sem recaída.

Inequality Around the World

Inequality Around the World
This website is dedicated to all facets of inequality: (I) how within-national inequalities are affected by macro economic policies or trade, (II) how and why regional inequalities within countries expand or not, (III) what were the effect of transition from state-controlled to market economies on inequality, and last but not the least, (IV) what is the state of global (world-wide) inequality between world citizens. In addition to a selection of papers, the site also offers several inequality datasets.
Enquiries:Branko Milanovic (Lead Economist): bmilanovic@worldbank.org
Permanent URL for this page: http://go.worldbank.org/300LMVGD10

Tuesday, October 16, 2007

More time to submit abstracts to the WCC2008

De: Maria Mesias [mailto:maria.mesias@worldheart.org]
Enviada em: terça-feira, 16 de outubro de 2007 09:34
Para: World Congress of Cardiology
Assunto: World Heart Federation - World Congress of Cardiology 2008 - Some more days to submit your abstracts!Prioridade: Alta
Dear Abstract submitter,

We would like to thank you for your submission and take the opportunity to update you.
The system will be kept open some more days thus you will have some time left to submit new abstracts if you wish!
Kindly forward this message to all your colleagues who may want to submit.
The WORLD CONGRESS OF CARDIOLOGY will take place from 18-21 May 2007 in Buenos Aires Argentina.
More than 250 sessions (Symposia, Clinical Seminars, How To & Workshops, Debates) will be presented as well as a series of special sessions (Plenaries - Joint Sessions with related organizations - Sessions in Spanish organized by the South American Society of Cardiology)
To submit an abstract: http://www.worldcardiocongress.org/ (ABSTRACT SUBMISSION)
To register: www.ics-online.com/ei/getdemo.ei?id=232&s=_1D40WH97M
Please be aware that you can always edit an abstract that you have already submitted by using the login and password you were given. This allows you to edit as many times as you need until deadline.
WORLD CONGRESS OF CARDIOLOGY 2008
http://www.worldcardiocongress.org/
World Heart Federation - Sociedad Argentina de Cardiologia - Federacion Argentina de Cardiologia